When the 423rd regiment of the 106th Infantry division was overrun by Germans during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, Sgt. Roland Slaysman of Baltimore was among those captured.

Slaysman was married and the father of two children. "I never had any idea I'd be in the Army," he says. "I wasn't a soldier-type of person. But I adapted real quick. It makes it easier when you accept that responsibility."

That attitude saved Slaysman during his time in a German POW camp.
"It was rough, especially for a city boy,” he recalls. “There wasn't much food and you couldn't wash. But I think it made me a better person. You didn't feel that bad because the German soldier guarding you wasn't getting any more food. You kind of felt sorry for them. A human being is a human being."

When liberated, Slaysman purposely didn’t tell his family when he was coming home. "I walked in the house and nobody was home but my mother," he says. "My father had died. And it was a happy day. I can still feel her squeezing me."