When Tammy Sakaguchi took her 89-year-old father to a veteran's home in Cameron, Mo., earlier this year, she learned about his quiet past through government discharge papers.

In World War II, he parachuted into the Philippines. He saw action as part of an artillery battalion. He was awarded the Bronze Star.

These were new revelations about her father, Edwin Zeltwanger - a private man who kept an air of Depression-era practicality and a "no regrets" attitude about living. He died Tuesday.

Ms. Sakaguchi said her father's apprehension to talk about the war was likely a coping mechanism. Even his nine siblings weren't aware of the details of his war experiences. Ms. Sakaguchi said her father refused to relive the past, except for the joyous times.

"He only talked (about the war) like he was in some kind of boy's club, like a fraternity. He talked about antics or he talked about funny things. He never talked about anything bad," Ms. Sakaguchi said.

After the war ended, Mr. Zeltwanger returned to his family's land in Troy, Kan., and went back to taking farmhand jobs in the area. Soon, he sprung for a job at Armour and Co., a meatpacking plant in St. Joseph, where he worked as a maintenance man for nearly three decades.

It was there that he met Mary, a cafeteria worker. They married and raised five children at their home in the South Side.

Ms. Sakaguchi said her father held a steady belief in God, country and duty to family - and instilled in his children moral values with a disciplinarian's approach that was tempered with good humor.

"My dad wasn't a doctor or a lawyer, but what he left me is so important. I have these things that he told me, his voice rings in my head: 'Don't lie, Tammy,' 'Don't brag,'" Ms. Sakaguchi said. "He believed that if you got right and wrong down pat, then you ought to be able to do whatever."

His sister, Shirley Morris, said her brother was a bootstraps man "who could not tolerate a crybaby" or a person without a firm work ethic. To the end, Mr. Zeltwanger, a short man with scant formal education, strove to live a life without regrets.

"He believed that in order to live without regrets, you have to be very careful about the decisions that you make," Ms. Sakaguchi said. "He tried to teach us that. It's not so much what you do, it's how you do it,"

Ahmad Safi can be reached

at ahmadsafi@npgco.com.