Upon news of the death of crooner Tony Bennett, all kinds of tributes are surfacing about his musical legacy. But a number of stories also are taking a look at his extraordinary experience in World War II as an 18-year-old. As he would write years later, the experience would shape his adult life by pushing him toward pacifism and against racism. "The main thing I got out of my military experience was the realization that I am completely opposed to war," Bennett wrote in The Good Life, his 1998 autobiography. "Although I understand why this war was fought, it was a terrifying, demoralizing experience for me. ... Life can never be the same once you've been through combat."
- Battle of the Bulge: Bennett, then known as Anthony Dominick Benedetto from New York City, was drafted at age 18 in 1944. He trained as an infantry rifleman, then got shipped overseas, where he soon found himself fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. "Most nights, we'd be awakened by the bombs that were going off around us," Bennett wrote. "On the front line, we'd see dead soldiers, dead horses and big craters in the ground where bombs had exploded." Afterward, his company entered Germany in 1945, where they fought "house by house to take German towns," per Military.com.