Battle of the Bulge veteran Vincent Speranza died on Wednesday, August 2, 2023. He was 98-years-old.

Speranza was just a kid from Hell’s Kitchen when he enlisted in the Army, and after attending Basic Training at Fort Benning, Georgia, he was assigned to the 501st Parachute Infantry under the 101st Airborne Division.

“We were just a bunch of kids, right out of high school, a lot of us like me, children of immigrant families,” Speranza said in a 2017 interview. “Our parents were so proud of this country. My father was a patriot like you wouldn’t believe. They expected their sons to defend the country, and we did.”

Speranza earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for Valor, but it was a small favor he did for a wounded friend that made him famous.

In December of 1944, Speranza and the rest of the 101st Airborne Division were in the Belgian city of Bastogne when — on direct orders from Adolf Hitler — the German army turned and surrounded the city. Speranza was visiting with his wounded friend Joe Willis in the ruins of a church that was being used to house injured personnel, and Willis asked for a drink.

Speranza reminded Willis that they were surrounded, but went looking for a drink anyway — and as luck would have it, he found a tapped barrel of Belgian beer in a nearby tavern. There were no glasses, however, so Speranza resorted to delivering the beer in his helmet.

He went back to the tavern several times for more, but was met on his return from one such trip by the regimental surgeon — who scolded him, noting that drinking beer could be fatal for any soldier suffering from intestinal trauma.

Without a word, Speranza saluted and put on the helmet, which was still full of beer at the time, and made a quick exit — and thus the “Airborne Beer” was born.

“After being a machine gunner at the Battle of the Bulge, winning a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star and (spending) two decades as a public school (history) teacher, Airborne Beer is what I’m famous for,” he would joke in later years.

Speranza was one of the few American soldiers who saw the inside of Hitler’s famous “Eagle’s Nest” in Berchtesgaden, where he said he saw the German dictator’s plan to divide up the globe with the other Axis powers — Italy and Japan — when the war was over. “If anybody ever doubted why we had to fight that war, there it was on the wall,” he said.

Speranza was discharged from the Army in 1946, and became a history teacher. For decades, he returned to Bastogne for anniversaries and memorial events. He even continued to jump, celebrating his 98th birthday in March, 2023, with a tandem jump from the World War II-era “Tico Belle.”

When I met PFC Vincent Speranza, both of us had just stepped off a transatlantic flight. I was en route to Bastogne for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge — and it soon became clear that he was as well.

I was standing near the baggage claim at the airport in Brussels, Belgium — and amid a cacophony of other languages, I could hear two men arguing in plain English.

Speranza, who would have been 94-years-old at the time, was animated — punctuating his thick New York accent with his hands in a way that made his Italian-American heritage undeniable.

Seated on a motorized cart, he was talking to a younger man who I quickly recognized as Ken McAuliffe, great-nephew of General Anthony McAuliffe — the American general who refused to surrender and held Bastogne until General George S. Patton arrived.

As the story goes, on December 22, 1944, the German commander sent a letter to McAuliffe under a white flag, informing him that the city was entirely surrounded (it was) and the Americans were grossly outnumbered (they were) and demanding that McAuliffe — and most of the 101st Airborne Division — surrender.

McAuliffe, according to the history books — and a letter he sent his beleaguered troops on Christmas Eve — sent the German commander one word in response: “NUTS!”

But Speranza, who was in Bastogne at the time as a member of the 501st Parachute Infantry, told the younger McAuliffe he didn’t buy it.

“I know that’s what they had to say to print it in the papers,” he said with a wink. “But I always thought that maybe, in private, he said something with a little more teeth.”

McAuliffe said no, explaining that wasn’t the general’s style. “When my great-grandmother — the general’s mother — got word of what had happened and heard that ‘NUTS!’ hade been his reply, she just laughed and threw up her hands. ‘That’s our Tony,’ she said.”

And so I watched, in awe, as a veteran of one of the bloodiest campaigns of World War II argued — three-quarters of a century later — with the great-nephew of his own commanding general about what that general did or did not say while in the grips of one of the most desperate moments in history.

RIP Vincent Speranza, 1925-2023

As revealed in the newly-released transcript of his congressional testimony, Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner who served with him on the Burisma board of directors, told the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability that then-Vice President Joe Biden was “the brand” that his son Hunter sold around the world.

“You’ve had other conversations with Hunter Biden,” James Mandolfo, the general counsel and chief of investigations for the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, noted, adding, “You were his business partner for a long time.”

“Did he talk about how bringing his dad either to Ukraine or using his dad as Vice President would add value in the eyes of Burisma officials?” Mandolfo asked.

“Yes,” Archer answered.

“And how would that come up?” Mandolfo asked.

“I just think it’s almost — it’s pretty obvious if you’re, you know, you’re the son of a Vice President,” Archer answered. “He would — we would not talk specifically about — you know, he would not be so overt. And I think that’s, you know, I think that’s another obvious point, that he would not say, okay, we’re going to — we’re — you know, I’m overtly — we’re going to use my dad for this. But I think he would — you know, given the brand, I think he would look to, you know, to get the leverage from it”

Mandolfo cited a note from Hunter Biden to Archer dated April 22, 2014.

“Essentially, Hunter Biden copies and pastes what appears to be a quote from his father’s speech while Vice President Biden was in the Ukraine,” Mandolfo noted. “You then respond, ‘Wow. We need to make sure this ragtag temporary government in the Ukraine understands the value of Burisma to its very existence.’ Hunter Biden then said, ‘You should send to Vadym’ — and who is Vadym again?”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP

“Would you agree with me this isn’t legal advice that’s adding value here that Hunter Biden is giving, the value add that Hunter Biden brings to Burisma is Vice President Biden?” Mandolfo suggested.

“The value that Hunter Biden brought to it was having — you know, there was — the theoretical was corporate governance, but obviously, given the brand, that was a large part of the value. I don’t think it was the sole value, but I do think that was a key component of the value,” Archer said.

“You keep saying ‘the brand,’ but by ‘brand’ you mean the Biden family, correct?” Mandolfo inquired.

“Correct,” Archer answered.

“When you say ‘Biden family’ … You aren’t talking about Dr. Jill or anybody else. You’re talking about Joe Biden. Is that fair to say?” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) interjected.

“Yeah, that’s fair to say,” Archer replied, adding, “Obviously, that brought the most value to the brand.”

Mandolfo asked Archer what was the basis for knowing that Hunter Biden’s family was “adding value.”

“My basis for knowing that?” Archer answered. “Well, I think there was — there are particular, you know, objectives that Burisma was trying to accomplish. And a lot of it’s about opening doors, you know, globally in D.C. And I think that, you know, that was the, you know — and then obviously having those doors opened, you know, sent the right signals, you know, for Burisma to, you know, carry on its business and be successful.”

Archer later added, “My only thought is that I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it. That’s my, like, only honest opinion.”

He added that Hunter Biden being on the board was why Burisma “was able to survive for as long as it did,” emphasizing “just because of the brand,” and that the impact for Burisma included “the capabilities to navigate D.C. that they were able to, you know, basically be in the news cycle. And I think that preserved them from a, you know, from a longevity standpoint.”

Asked how that would work, Archer answered, “Because people would be intimidated to mess with them.” When asked “in what way,” Archer replied, “Legally.”