Students at Armuchee Middle School were given a lesson about war, the military, and life in general Monday morning when a dozen or so veterans visited the school ahead of the Veterans Day holiday Wednesday.

Principal Albert Watters said he wanted to make sure students understood the sacrifice that members of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations made for America and its citizens. He also said that as a former history teacher, he knew the stories the veterans would tell were invaluable.

“These gentlemen and their experiences are walking history, and we have to take advantage of that,” said Watters.

One of those men who shared his story Monday was Tom Centola, the son of an Italian immigrant living in New York, who was drafted by the Army in 1943 at age 23 and became a surgical technician working at Battey Hospital in Rome. Centola told students about his draft experience, training, and his job working in the operating room.

He said he got his draft letter, went before the draft board, had a physical, and was put on a train with no idea where he was headed. He originally failed the physical because of a previous leg surgery, but was eventually passed.

“There was a saying back then. They felt your body and, ‘if you’re warm, you’re in,’” Centola told a classroom full of eighth-graders.

Though he has no idea why he was chosen for the job he wound up with, Centola said he enjoyed it and still regrets not pursuing a job in medicine following his military service. Students asked about his experiences in the hospital and Centola told them how he once had to pour saline onto the blade of a rotary saw as the surgeon cut through a soldier’s leg.

“The blood off the saw blade was hitting me in the stomach all the way up to my face, but I had to keep pouring the saline,” he said.

Someone asked the veteran what Veterans Days means to him, and Centola, whose four brothers were also in the Army, said it’s important to honor those people who served their country so that even those not yet born could enjoy peace and freedom.

“A lot of those men and women sacrificed their lives so we could be free,” he said.