MELVILLE, NEW YORK – Assemblymember Charles Lavine (D-North Shore) honors a World War II veteran in celebration of his 101^st birthday. Lavine presented Eli Levine with a citation in recognition of his service to our country at his home in Melville on Friday (2/16). Eli Levine, whose actual birthday was January 31^st, is originally from Brooklyn and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. As U.S. forces proceeded east after D-Day, so did Eli – arriving in France and passing through Belgium and Holland before eventually ending up in Germany where he was during the Battle of the Bulge. Throughout the war, Eli put his skills as a trained optician to use, running a small group repairing eyeglasses for front-line servicemen. He stayed in Germany until after the war and was discharged in January 1946 as a technical sergeant. Married in 1948, he and his beloved wife Louise had two girls and a boy. They had two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.  Eli went on to have a successful career as an optician. Louise, who passed away in 2019, was an advocate for breast cancer awareness and worked closely on this cause with Assemblymember Charles Lavine.

“It was an honor and a privilege to meet this true American hero. We are forever grateful for the sacrifices that Eli and so many others of his, the Greatest Generation, made to preserve democracy,” Charles Lavine said.