A 98-year-old veteran of World War II says if former President Donald Trump were the commander in chief again, he “would reenlist today.”
“I would storm whatever beach my country … needs me to,” long-retired Sgt. William Pekrul declared in his speech on the third night of the quadrennial Republican National Convention.
Pekrul introduced himself to the audience in Milwaukee on Wednesday night as “a proud Wisconsinite,” husband, and father of 11 children. He shared his war experiences, among them the horrors he witnessed at “the Nazi war camps.”
“In the Battle of the Bulge, my friends and I fought to stop the Nazis’ last major portion of the Western Front,” he said. “We found out later Hitler was dead. The Nazis were defeated. We gave thanks to Almighty God for delivering us from evil.”
Pekrul noted that he still misses many of his fellow vets, saying that for WWII veterans like him who are still alive, “America is still worth fighting for.”
In his speech, the nonagenarian also criticized the Biden administration’s policies. “It hurts my heart to see what our current president and vice president have done to the country I love so well,” he said, citing the U.S.’s abrupt and chaotic military pullout from Afghanistan, terrorists running “wild in the Middle East,” and letting illegal immigrants “overrun” the southern border.
While some people say “America is an idea,” Pekrul said, he believes “America is much more than that. America is our home.”
He recalled how he kissed the ground and thanked God when he returned to the U.S. after fighting in Europe.
“Where I come from, when somebody comes for me, for my home, you dig your boots in the ground and never look back. That’s the attitude that saved the free world,” Pekrul said.