Escaping close encounters.

Byline: Lou Michel

Sept. 12--Before he was drafted into the Army, Stanley M. Maziarz had already put in four years of service in the work world, starting at age 16. Life was not easy. He had quit high school to support himself after his mother died. He was the second youngest of 10 brothers and sisters. His first job, at R. T. Jones Lumber on Tonawanda Island in North Tonawanda, brought him 25 cents an hour. After a year, he advanced to Buffalo Bolt on North Tonawanda's Oliver Street as a machine operator, almost doubling his hourly wage to 49 cents. Then, he took a drastic pay cut when Uncle Sam drafted him. "I was paid $20 a month in the Army," recalled the 89-year-old North Tonawanda resident.

But there were some fringe benefits -- kind of. During a brief 1943 leave from Company I, 109th Infantry …