THE ROOTS ARE POLISH

For those who don’t know what the word PATRIOT means

This article is for You young reader! Be proud to be Polish

From the editor! This is not an English translation of the previous article about the Polish designer of the PATRIOT system. We received this article from our Reader Mr. J. Franciszek Ligos from Chicago. Source: BILLY COX | Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Julian Zdzislaw Starostecki career enshrined him in a gallery reserved for only two other native Poles. Pulaski, regarded as „the father of American cavalry,” saved George Washington’s life during the Battle of Brandywine. Kosciuszko was the engineer who designed the defenses of West Point.

Survivor of Soviet gulag designed Patriot missile Julian Zdzislaw Starostecki died of cancer on New Year’s Eve 2010.

As he passed away quietly in his wife’s arms just moments before midnight on New Year’s Eve, 91-year-old Julian Zdzislaw Starostecki held a rare distinction with two heroes of the American Revolution.

Above: General Starostecki accepts his wife’s congratulations right after giving him the general’s insignia. Photo. Archives of the Jan Karski Society/dziennikwschodni.pl

Imprisoned in a Siberian gulag shortly after the Nazis and Soviets invaded Poland in 1939, the former Polish army private was eventually released by his Russian captors to fight Germany. Starostecki joined a tank unit under British command, was wounded three times and nearly lost a leg during the last week of the war. After immigrating to America, Starostecki went to work designing weapons, most notably with Raytheon, where he was a pioneer in the development of the Patriot missile. The Patriot is an air defense weapon that debuted during the Gulf War as Iraq flung Scud missiles at Israel.

„My father basically never stopped fighting,” said son Andrew Starostecki. „He helped design the early Patriot with the Soviet Union in mind.”

Andrew Starostecki remembers his father as an inveterate tinkerer who also worked on TOW missile and Stinger missile systems. The former is a guided, armor-piercing explosive often deployed as an anti-tank weapon. The Stinger is the shoulder-launched warhead renowned for blasting Soviet helicopters out of the sky in Afghanistan during the 1980s.” My father was a good artist. He did stained-glass windows and paintings, but as he got older his work grew more eccentric and dark,” said his son. „He wound up making wind chimes out of warheads from material like depleted uranium. We used to have all kinds of warheads around the house.”

But the Patriot was his favorite. He expected the missile would be employed to stave off Soviet attacks. Little did he know it would debut as a shield to defend Israel in 1991.

„Dad was obsessed with it for 15 years. He worked on a warhead that was designed not to hit its target but to send out a spray of projectiles that would put a bunch of holes in it,” said his son.

Early last year, a documentary film crew from Poland interviewed his father about his life. The results were surprising.” I could never get my father to talk about how depressed he was after the war,” Starostecki says. „But these filmmakers were able to pull it out of him.”

The elder Starostecki was convicted of being a U.S. spy by the Soviets in 1939 and sentenced to hard labor at a gold mine in the Arctic region of Kolyma. He was freed after Hitler turned on Russia. Starostecki made his way to British Palestine, and was with a Polish force in Italy that defeated the Nazis in the bloody siege of Monte Cassino.

With just days remaining before Germany’s surrender, Starostecki nearly had his leg blown off by a sniper near Bologna. „They told him they were going to amputate, but dad said absolutely not, he wanted a Polish surgeon to reattach his leg. And that’s what happened,” said his son. „He lived with pain but he was able to run around and play tennis.”

Pictures from the book „The Roots Are Polish” by Aleksandra Ziólkowska-Boehm

At the entrance to the Monte Cassino Cemetery there is a carved inscription – the credo given to the world…

For our freedom and yours
We, the Polish soldiers,
Gave our spirit to God
Our flesh to the Italian soil
And our hearts to Poland.

Be proud to be Polish !

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