(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Ninety-eight-old Bernie Bluestein has been taking art classes at Harper College for the last 32 years.
“I'm a lifelong learner and I've taken just about every art course that they have here,” he said.
His artistic skills were developed much earlier, when he served in a deception unit known as the “Ghost Army” during World War II in Europe. More than 1,000 service members created the appearance of mobilized U.S. forces to distract German forces. Their trickery included the use of inflatable tanks and recorded sounds.
“When I joined them, they were all learning how to make planes and guns and trucks, and all kinds of equipment out of wood and covering them with burlap and then painting camouflage colors,” Bluestein explained. “From the air, those things, when they were photographed, looked like the Real McCoy, which is what we wanted to do, because we knew the Germans would have airplanes looking around to see what was on the other side.”
The Schaumburg resident’s top secret work wasn’t declassified until 1996. It wasn’t until last week he learned the 603rd Battalion of Camouflage Engineers would be receiving the Congressional Gold Medal.
President Biden this month signed the Ghost Army Congressional Gold Medal Act.
“I was completely blown away,” Bluestein said. “I mean, who am I to get a Congressional medal? It's unbelievable.”
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Bluestein on Wednesday told WBBM Newsradio there will be a ceremony in Washington D.C. He said he hopes it will be sooner rather than later, given the advanced age of the recipients.
“I'm 98 years old and all the rest of the guys, there's only about 10 or 11 of us that are still living,” he said.
For more information about the Ghost Army, go to the Ghost Army Legacy Project.
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