Las Vegas’ last known D-Day vet dies at 102: Purple Heart recipient Onofrio ‘No-No’ Zicari

Onofrio “No-No” Zicari was Las Vegas’ last known D-Day veteran.

On Friday, the city of Las Vegas announced in a social media post that Zicari has died. He was 102.

A Purple Heart recipient, Zicari, an Army private, was just 21 when he and his fellow soldiers were called upon to storm France’s Normandy coast on D-Day — June 6, 1944 — during World War II.

As part of the Army’s 5th Amphibious Brigade and the fifth wave to descend on Omaha Beach, Zicari suffered shrapnel wounds to one of his knees and a shoulder.

A draftee from Geneva, New York, Zicari was pinned down on the beach by German troops and artillery after being injured.

The medic who cared for his knee was killed roughly an hour later.

Zicari returned to Normandy in 2019 for the 75th commemoration of the battle, and again last year for the 80th commemoration.

Before making the trip in 2024, Zicari told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that “the good Lord is keeping me alive for a reason.”

Zicari’s previous trip in 2019 drew the attention of ABC News’ “World News Tonight,” which followed along as he and other veterans reminisced about the battle and revisited spots still vivid in their memories.

One clip showed Zicari visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and stopping at the final resting place of his friend — Pvt. Donald Simmons — who was killed just as he was about to exit the landing craft and storm ashore at Omaha Beach.

In June 2021, Zicari received the Purple Heart military decoration from the Army. In October of that year, he came to the City Council chambers in Las Vegas to be ceremoniously pinned.

“You are a hero and a star,” then-Mayor Carolyn Goodman said at the time. Several active military personnel and veterans were in attendance that day to congratulate Zicari.

“I never knew I had so many friends,” Zicari joked on Oct. 6, 2021, standing at the podium with Goodman and the rest of the City Council. “I’m just overwhelmed with everybody here, and I wish us all good luck and God bless you.”

Zicari was also named the city’s citizen of the month for October 2021.

A devoted Catholic, Zicari said publicly that his company’s priest helped him get through the ugliness of the war.

“There, I was in a state of grace,” Zicari said in 2019. “I didn’t want to die, but I wasn’t afraid.”

Over the years, he frequently appeared in the Review-Journal.

In one story, he said he wasn’t sure if he would ever get closure from his war memories, like the soldier with fiery red hair who sat on his helmet laughing while holding his guts in with his hands — even as Germans continued to fire in his direction.

He once said he remembered soldiers in the war going without showering and eating and cooking out of helmets. As an Italian-American, he also had a memory that few other vets share: making spaghetti out of burdock, an edible root, for his company.

Zicari also fought in the infamous Battle of the Bulge, a German offensive that began on Dec. 16, 1944.

The city’s post on X on Friday noted that Zicari “leaves a proud legacy of protecting our nation and our freedoms.”

Contact Bryan Horwath at bhorwath@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BryanHorwath on X.