Virgil Smith of Shawano was 20-years old when he enlisted in the Army in 1942.

Now, at 86, his memories of joining up are as fresh as if it happened yesterday.

He figured he'd be serving our country with some friends who went in at the same time, "me and four other guys thought we'd all be together, but it never happened."

At first it looked like the group that Virgil did end up with was heading north to train, but it was just the opposite, "we thought we were going to Alaska, we were all given heavy gear, but we ended up in Florida.""

His service started in the Sunshine State and from there Virgil was also in Tennessee, Indiana and New Jersey before he was shipped off to England for even more training.

It was during the stop in the UK that Virgil met, shook hands with and started a lifelong admiration for GEN Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Virgil says "he was just as common as you or I, he asked me where I was from and asked me if I knew how to use the bazooka was training with. He said may be there will be a day when you'll have to use it.""

It wasn't too long after meeting the future president, that Virgil did get the word he would be heading to the front lines of WWII, "we got notice to load up and went to South Hampton and we knew what the next stop was going to be.""

That next stop would be fighting in Europe.

Virgil was not among the first soldiers to hit the beach at omaha. He was in the second or third wave. But it was still deadly, even for his friend named Jimmy who ended up in a different boat, "when we took off he got in the next boat and he never made it..."

As Virgil talks about the invasion, you can see in his eyes, he's reliving it in his mind, "it was all fog, you couldn't see a thing, but there was bombing, but we got in all right.""

He was in the war for 3.5 years, fighting in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, "we could shoot into Germany and they could shoot back, it was a wicked one."

Perhaps the most wicked is among the most famous, "we got notice to go to the Ardennes to the Battle of the Bulge, that was the big one, just as bad as Omaha.""

But it wasn't just the Germans, Virgil and the other soldiers were fighting, it was mother nature. They were up to their shoulders in snow.

He credits Eisenhower for bringing it to an end, "tell you how smart Eisenhower was, he let the Germans come through the middle, so we surrounded them."

But even with victory in that and many other battles, the scars remain, "it was terrible, it was unbelievable what humans would do.""

"I tell you, I prayed a lot," says Virgil.

And finally those prayers were answered. Virgil was in Germany when the country surrendered to the allies, "it was just like your were born again, it was just like, I made it."

Virgil sailed off to war on a converted cattle ship. His return home came on the Queen Mary. But the voyage home on a luxury liner and the passage of time don't dull the pain still carried by Virgil and thousands of other members of The Greatest Generation.

"To me, the heroes are still over there," says Virgil.

And he says while many don't like to talk about their time in war, he sees it as his job, "I'm here to tell you what the heroes did and I came home to explain it."