Last week, The Massapequan Observer profiled Jack Greaney, a local resident who was featured in New York War Stories, a World War II documentary produced by WLIW-21.

That documentary will have an encore performance this Saturday, Sept. 29 at 2:30 p.m., also on WLIW. Another Massapequa resident, Melvin Brenner, also shares his wartime experiences on the program.

A native of Bridgeport, CT, Brenner, while still a teenager, moved with his family to Brooklyn. From there, he joined the US Army in 1943. After basic training at Ft. Benning, GA, Brenner joined an outfit known as "glider troops." "It was the dumbest thing I ever did," he said. "Everyone [in the outfit] died." Well, not everyone. Brenner eventually joined a rifle company, where he rose to become assistant squad leader.

In October 1944, Brenner was sent to Scotland, where he trained for six weeks before seeing combat duty in southern France. An encounter with German tanks "sent him flying," but not injured badly. From France, Brenner and other GIs were transported 350 miles in winter weather to the Battle of the Bulge. "I was very lucky," he recalled. "Of the 42 men in my infantry platoon, only seven survived the war." The Battle of the Bulge, as Brenner also recalled, saw 80,000 wounded GIs and 18,000 killed in action.

By now, Brenner was a squad leader, giving him more melancholy memories. He would see his men in the morning, and by afternoon, many of them were gone forever. A number of them, Brenner said, were Air Corps personnel from Great Britain, men not yet prepared for battle. "We sent people out. Some came back. Some didn't. It was very painful," he said.

Brenner also saw action along the Rhine River. His knowledge of German helped him in rounding up prisoners of war. He also had an encounter with an SS guard who did not give up so easily. The guard, Brenner recalled, fired at him. "He missed. I didn't," Brenner said. Brenner shot the guard in the leg and took him prisoner. On a more pleasant note, Brenner remembered German civilians who were always "happy to see Americans" as their towns were being liberated.

Brenner related more wartime memories to The Massapequan Observer. Among them were:

• "Lying on the ground near one of the forts and having a large piece of shrapnel land next to my face. I could feel its heat."

• "Riding on the top of a tank with half my squad and seeing the driver and officer killed by a sniper when they came out of their turrets. I refused to ride on a tank again."

• "Hearing that the war would be over the next day and not wanting to die on the last day."

• "Coming up New York Harbor and seeing the Statue of Liberty and being greeted by fireboats shooting water into the air and bands playing on the decks of ships."

• "Walking up the driveway to my mother's house and seeing her standing there, tears streaming down her cheeks. Me, too. I was not yet 21."

A part of history, Brenner, once the war ended, began teaching history. After teaching in the New York City public schools for nine years, he moved to Massapequa in 1956. There, Brenner and his wife raised their three daughters. On Long Island, Brenner taught social studies in the Plainview School District, mostly at John F. Kennedy High School.

Several years ago, Brenner recorded a tape for the New York History Project, one related those same wartime experiences and one that got him on the current WLIW program.

Nearly one million New Yorkers fought in World War II. Millions more joined the war effort on the home front. New York War Stories, focuses specifically on local residents' experience of the global conflict. Interviews and images capture the mood of the time, from the familiar strains of the "Make Believe Ballroom" radio program to the common threads that defined life in wartime, no matter where people lived or on what line they fought.

The documentary with viewer-contributed videos and letters as its centerpiece, takes viewers through the trajectory of the war. Veterans and civilians from all over the tri-state area contribute their memories of what the war meant in their homes and towns to tell the emotional story of one of the most important events in world history, a dramatic time for a generation when world events turned local communities upside down and everyone was part of the war effort.