Sidney Shachnow, who survived the Holocaust as a child and fought as a Green Beret in Vietnam, died Sept. 27, 2018, at age 83 in Pinehurst, North Carolina. During World War II, Shachnow, born in Kovno, Lithuania, was imprisoned with his family in a nearby concentration camp, where he spent three years under harsh conditions before escaping. He lived in hiding for months before completing a six-month trek westward toward American-occupied Germany. In 1950, Shachnow, along with his father, mother and brother, who also survived the war, moved to Massachusetts. After dropping out of high school, Shachnow enlisted in the Army, steadily rose up through the ranks, became a commissioned officer in 1960 and joined the Special Forces in 1962. He served two tours in Vietnam and was awarded two…
