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NEW YORK — Joel Palazzo, 82, a bartender in a midtown Manhattan bar, spent 22 months during World War II in Stalag 17, a German prison camp, after being shot down over Hanover.

Two decades later, when a film crew shooting the movie “Network” did a scene at the bar where Palazzo worked, the actor William Holden – who would later star in a film called “Stalag 17” – halted the filming after becoming transfixed by the veteran. Palazzo told Holden about the workings of the prison camp and how, although they did not eat the best of meals, the POWs were otherwise well treated. This was before the signing of the 1949 Geneva Convention, which established the rules for the humane treatment of war prisoners. The German military was accommodating, even allowing prisoners to regularly write letters to their families in the U.S.

When Palazzo, now 82, saw pictures of shackled Taliban fighters, crouching in cages at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba, he was appalled. “Abominable,” Palazzo repeatedly said of the conditions to which the “enemy combatants” were subjected. It should not matter who they are, they should be allowed to meet their lawyers, said Palazzo, who believed the principles underpinning the Geneva Convention were what kept him alive.

During our conversation, the bartender described the many times that he now forgot his customers’ drinks as “senior moments, which happen about every 20 seconds.” But when he talked about politics, Palazzo’s words were razor sharp. The decorated veteran used the word “schmuck” more than once to describe various members of the Bush administration.

The staunch Democrat’s ire was not fueled solely by party loyalty. Palazzo worried that the Bush presidency’s aggressive war policy was adversely impacting how Americans are perceived by the world. Our allies will abandon us, he said. An Italian-American old enough to know first hand discrimination against southern and eastern European immigrants, Palazzo also feared that Arab-Americans might be subjected to more racial profiling should a war in Iraq erupt.

“You may not see it,” Palazzo whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “but a lot of people feel the way I do.”