After a century of life, service, and memories, World War II veteran Frank Pillitteri is celebrating his 100th birthday surrounded by the Erie community he has always called home.<\/p>\n
Family and friends from across the country gathered Saturday to celebrate Pillitteri\u2019s milestone birthday and honor the legacy he has built over the past 100 years.<\/p>\n
Born and raised in Erie\u2019s \u201cLittle Italy,\u201d Pillitteri served in the U.S. Army from November 1944 through August 1946, including time stationed in Germany during and after World War II.<\/p>\n
Today, Pillitteri is a father of five, grandfather of eight, and great-grandfather of one. His family says he has spent his life showing them the importance of hard work, giving back, and leaving something meaningful behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel really good that I have so many friends,\u201d Pillitteri said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know I had so many friends. I\u2019m really surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he reflected on reaching 100, Pillitteri shared a simple lesson he learned over the years: kindness goes a long way.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got older, I realized you\u2019ve got to be nice to people,\u201d he said. \u201cEven if you don\u2019t like somebody, be nice. It ain\u2019t gonna hurt nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
After 100 years filled with family, friendships, service, and countless memories, Pillitteri says he continues to appreciate each day as a gift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a century of life, service, and memories, World War II veteran Frank Pillitteri is celebrating his 100th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,296,139,8735,114340,2349],"class_list":["post-271551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-local","tag-news","tag-veteran","tag-veteran-recognition","tag-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}