WAOW - Newsline 9, Wausau News, Weather, SportsWausau students learn from WWII veteran

Wausau students learn from WWII veteran

WAUSAU (WAOW)--7^th graders at Horace Mann Middle School meet up with a living piece of history.

Walter John Chilsen served as a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Air Force during World War II. Chilsen remembers the day the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor. "Pearl Harbor happened; the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that December 7th of 1941, immediately united the country. We were really ill-prepared for war of any kind. They were training troops with broomsticks in the southern part of the United States or with wooden guns."

Lori Grundy, the 7th Grade Language Arts and English Teacher at Horace Mann Middle School, says that it's important for her students to hear the veterans stories so they can keep them alive, even as those who fought pass on. "Our unit is WWII and the Holocaust. There is no better way to teach history than to have our historians with us," Grundy says. "As the WWII generation becomes older and passes on, we want their stories to live."

7^th grader Hunter Hoerter says he likes having Chilsen in class. "It was very informational, because we're doing this whole unit on the holocaust and we have to read books and do assignments about it so I think it will help me a lot."

Zane Mickelsen, also in 7th grade says that Chilsen's heroic stories make learning exciting. "His stories about his plane crashing and him surviving and getting his purple heart."