This month's hero enlisted in the Army with classmates from Madison East High School. Raymond Williams, Junior is so modest about his accomplishments, it took decades for his family to learn of them.

"We could never really explain what we were doing or where we was at."

It took two generations for the Williams family to discover their father was a decorated war hero. 82-year-old Raymond Williams Jr. kept quiet about his service in World War II until his granddaughter Kari joined the Air Force.

Williams son Steven says, "Then it came out he had all the medals and everything which we never even knew about."

Williams turned 17 on December 7th, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. The following year, Williams was assigned to the Infantry's 1st Division and was shipped to England where he trained to invade France.

Williams says, "G-Day, June 6th, we landed on Omaha Beach. I think in that first day we had over 1,000 casualties."

He earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for his service in the war.

"Once just after we broke out of St. Lo, I got an artillery wound. The other time was over in Hurtgen, Germany, we was on one side of the town and they was on the other and they had a big railroad gun and they destroyed the house we was in," says Williams.

But Ray's favorite medal is his Infantry Men's Badge, awarded only to infantry members on the front lines in combat. Ray says the lessons he learned years ago can help men fighting on the front lines today.

"When they complain now the way we treat prisoners and that I keep thinking I had friend of a brother who was on Death Barge and they was pretty bad, the Japanese treated us pretty bad and yet today we're good allies and that shows you can be enemies and become friends later on."

Members of Ray's family made many scrapbooks. Ray's mother saved every letter Ray ever wrote home.