Fighting in Germany as an infantryman during World War II, Creech was wounded and captured by German soldiers in the war's closing days.

On Sunday before a crowd of about 40 veterans and others, Creech recounted in sometimes graphic detail some of the horrors he witnessed in battle and during his five-month imprisonment.

Creech was the keynote speaker at a brief Veterans Day ceremony held on Main Street and sponsored by the Two Green Thumbs Garden Club.

Veterans lined up before the Blue Star Memorial marker to lay carnations on a wreath placed in front of the marker by Mr. and Mrs. John Parrish.

The ceremony included many of the other trappings of such events: patriotic songs, the Pledge of Allegiance, thanks offered to veterans and pleas to remember their service.

But it was Creech's remarks that held everyone's attention.

Creech volunteered for the U.S. Army as a 17-year-old, just two years after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

"I was really anxious to do my part," Creech explained.

Creech was sent to Europe in 1944, where he spent his first night in France on guard duty.

"It was a scary thing to look in front of you and think that everyone in front of you was your enemy. But somehow I made it through that first night," Creech said.

He later found himself in Germany, assigned to clear a section of woods with a group of 12 or 15 other volunteers.

The assignment was supposed to be mop-up duty, but it went bad when the Germans started firing on the Americans with large weapons.

Creech and two other members of his unit tried to knock out the big gun, but a shot fired by the weapon splintered a tree, killing one of the men and injuring Creech. The third man was shot in the assault on the big gun.

Creech found himself on the wrong end of a German soldier's weapon and was taken off the battlefield. He managed to escape, but his injuries prevented him from moving quickly and he was soon recaptured.

That led to a nearly 5-month experience that led Creech to wonder if he would ever return home.

He watched as German guards disposed of a dead prisoner's body unceremoniously.

"As I lay there, I was thinking about that and I started to worry that my mother was never going to know what had happened to me," Creech said.

But Creech survived his time as a prisoner of war and returned to the United States.

Although Veterans Day is officially today (Wednesday), Sunday's service marked the second annual Veterans Day commemoration in Knightdale.