Sykesville Man Captures 'Blood, Sweat, Tears' of Local Veterans

This is a special Veterans Day that was previously featured on Patch.  

Walter Gray woke up west of Berlin in the middle of World War II to the sight of the enemy artillery, three German tanks pointing their guns at him and his fellow troops. Charles Franklin LePage was ready for his first mission as a fighter pilot, heading for Japan when an unidentified plane approached his aircraft carrier.

They were both local veterans, Gray from Eldersburg, LePage from Sykesville. Their stories, along with those of many other military men, are profiled in They Gave Blood, Sweat and Tears: True Stories of American Veterans From World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom, written by Sykesville author Bill Hall.

The book released in July is a compilation of short stories that became a long-term project for Hall after the local paper picked up his idea of profiling real life local heroes.

“In the Carroll County Times I noticed for the past few years when a veteran dies they have a flag in the paper,” said Hall who served in the Coast Guard. “I started thinking about how many veterans are dying without their stories reaching the public and I decided I wanted to change that before it was too late for these men.

“I was by myself and between jobs one day at the McDonalds in Eldersburg when this man came in wearing a hat that said ‘WWII Amphibians.’ I put my hand out and shook his hand and said I’d like to thank him for his service. I decided driving home that this was the time in my life to take on this project,” said Hall.

He contacted the Carroll County Times and started a column in July of 2009 featuring a different veteran’s story each week for 13 months. When he ended his column on Aug. 9, 2010, after 58 veterans, he knew it was time to compile them into a collection.

The stories tell the background of 54 of the veterans Hall interviewed, giving those who read them a glance into the real heroes that fought for the country.

“He still vividly recalls the rows of covered bodies lined up on the beach as they came ashore at Normandy,” reads the story of Eldersburg resident William Mayer. “As they went inland across the field, they saw a glider that had crashed nose down into trees and the bodies of the troops still in it. Of the 2,056 men of the regiment who jumped into Normandy, 1,161 became casualties.”

“The last thing he wanted to be was a prisoner of war,” read the story of Walter Gray, a veteran who currently lives in Eldersburg. “When Gray awoke his men were holding their hands up in the air with three German tanks pointing their guns at them. He got up and ran expecting to be shot in the back. He ran and got into a bunker over a hill, where he met two other GIs, crossed the river and entered the town of Magdeburg on the Elbe River.”

As a veteran himself, for Hall these stories were an inspiration.

“I was in the Coast Guard during Vietnam where I was a cook. I cooked for 175 people I was in there for four years. I felt I was one of them,” said Hall. “I was thrilled to be able to do this. It was an honor. It was like meeting true American heroes.”

Hall’s book can be purchased online through Amazon.com here.