After 78 years of out-of-pocket medical bill payments, 103-year-old World War II veteran Louis Gigliotti from Anchorage, Alaska, has finally gotten his veterans benefits. Known by most as “Jiggs,” Gigliotti was a surgical technician during the war but was not aware of the advantages he would have as a veteran.
Melanie Carey, Gigliotti’s caregiver for around ten years, found the error when she started helping him with his medical bills. She found out that despite possessing a Veteran Administration card, he had been paying for his treatment out of pocket. “I don’t think he understood that being a veteran has advantages,” Carey said. Gigliotti had never used the local VA facility.
Gigliotti’s military path was not clear-cut. Initially raised in an orphanage and working on a farm in Norwalk, Connecticut, he first tried to join at the start of World War Two. Due to his poor vision he got rejected. Later on following the terrible death of his two companions during the assault on Pearl Harbor, he applied once more and was approved. Though he never witnessed fighting, he worked as a surgical technician.
Gigliotti came to Alaska in 1955 after the war, ran two bars in Fairbanks before settling in Anchorage. There, he worked for twenty years as a bartender at the oldest steakhouse in Anchorage. In his retirement, he taught future boxers for free in his garage and looked after his wife, Millie, until her death due to cancer in 2003.
Gigliotti received the Alaska Veterans Honor Medal last week at an event held at the Alaska Veterans Museum by the Alaska Office of Veterans Affairs. The award recognizes people who performed honorably in American military services.
