Leo Versteegh remembers the exact day he was drafted for combat during WWII: June 6, 1942.

The 21-year-old native of Sully was working for the Vernon Company in Newton when he received a letter ordering him to report to Camp Carson, Colo. It wasn’t long, though, before Versteegh would head overseas as part of the Army’s 88th Infantry division.

“We went across in one of Britain’s largest boats,” he explained. “It had four smokestacks and bunks stacked up to your head ... it could have about fit the whole town of Newton, I think. The Spike Jones Band and two girl singers performed twice a day, and it took us eight and a half days to get to Glasgow, Scotland.”