Thursday, October 1, 2026
Lou Laurino has watched America evolve from the depths of the Great Depression through World War II, the Cold War and now the nation’s approaching 250th anniversary.
The 99-year-old Bayville resident, World War II Navy veteran and retired surrogate court judge sees the semiquincentennial not only as a celebration of the country’s founding, but as a reflection of the sacrifices, discipline and civic responsibility that shaped generations of Americans, including his own.
“It’s an extraordinary achievement for a young nation,” Laurino said.
Born in Astoria, Queens — on Jan. 2, 1927, according to his birth certificate, though he says he was actually born several days earlier, on Dec. 28, 1926 — Laurino grew up in a working-class Italian immigrant household during the Depression. His father, Donato Laurino, had served in the Italian Army during World War I, and spent 15 months as a prisoner of war after being captured by German forces.
His father, Laurino recalled, strongly encouraged him and his older brother to join the Navy if America ever entered another war.
He vividly remembers hearing news of the attack on Pearl Harbor as a 14-year-old after leaving a Queens movie theater with his younger brother. “We sat down to have an ice cream soda, and the young man behind the counter said, ‘We’re at war,’” Laurino recounted. “We asked, ‘Where’s Pearl Harbor?’ He said Hawaii.”
At the time, Laurino was attending Stuyvesant High School, in Manhattan. He was also while in high school working roughly 30 hours a week, as he had since age 9, delivering bread throughout Astoria for 50 cents a day. The bread truck driver, a former Stuyvesant student named Pete, taught Laurino algebra, trigonometry and French while they made deliveries.
“He introduced me to reading books,” Laurino said, “and the first book that I ever read was ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.’”
Determined to finish high school before being drafted, Laurino attended summer classes to complete the Regents exams necessary for graduation. He ultimately passed them all, and enlisted in the Navy in December 1945, at age 18. “I knew that there was an obligation to meet the need of the country,” he said. “I had no difficulty, no hesitation, no attempt to avoid going into the service.”
After boot camp and additional training at Great Lakes Naval Station, near Chicago, Laurino became a motor machinist’s mate, and was assigned to a small Navy tugboat operating in the Pacific Theater. He served in Guam, Okinawa and Hawaii during the final months of World War II.
The tugboat, manned by roughly 40 sailors and five officers, hauled construction equipment for Navy Seabees — the United States Naval Construction Force— throughout the Pacific. Laurino recalled that the vessel moved so slowly that Japanese forces “wouldn’t waste a torpedo on something so small.”
Still, danger remained constant. “Every night,” he remembered, “we would have the kamikaze planes coming around.”
He was on the boat when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The announcement, Laurino said, stunned service members, many of whom didn’t even know what an atomic bomb was. “No one really understood the science,” he recalled.
After the war, Laurino was hospitalized — in Pearl Harbor, as it happened — after losing 50 pounds from chronic seasickness and exposure to diesel fumes aboard the tugboat. Then he came home, determined to continue his education. Using benefits from the GI Bill, he attended Brooklyn Law School, where he earned his degree, and eventually built a legal and political career in Queens. He served as Queens County surrogate from 1971 to 1985 — handling legal matters involving adoptions, guardianships, estates and wills — and proudly described refusing campaign contributions in order to preserve his independence.
“I wanted the freedom to make unbiased decisions,” Laurino said. “Not being beholden to contributors allowed me to serve the public impartially and effectively.”
Laurino and his wife, Rose, who died last year, met as teenagers in Astoria. They had children, and eventually settled permanently in Bayville after decades of spending summers there with their growing family.
He sees both promise and concern in the nation’s future, Laurino said. He worries about political hostility and declining civic discipline, but remains optimistic about the country’s resilience.
“We don’t have to have similarity and sameness in thinking,” he said. “We’re never going to agree on policy, but that doesn’t mean we have to attack each other in the manner that it’s being done.”
Laurino added that he believes civic participation remains central to the American identity, and credits generations of immigrants, workers and veterans for building the nation he has watched bloom.
“It all progressed from immigration,” he said. “The remarkable part of having immigrants … coming here and working and developing, growing and going into business and achieving this success, and raising families who get the education necessary to achieve the success is remarkable.”
Despite the political and social divisions he sees today, Laurino said he remains hopeful. “I think we still have a strong future,” he said.
