The Cullman Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution presented WWII veteran and prisoner of war George Mills with its Wounded Warrior honor Wednesday at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post. 

Mills, who enlisted in the Army in 1942, joined the 109th Infantry, 28th Division and saw field action in four battles, including the Battle of the Bulge, where he was captured by German forces and held along with other U.S. soldiers for five months.

He shared some of that experience with the local chapter Wednesday, saying he and his fellow soldiers’ harrowing ordeal — starvation, lice, freezing cold and the uncertainty of their fate in the custody of the enemy — was worth enduring.

“I wouldn’t wanna do it again,” he admitted. “But it was a trip I made that I wouldn’t take anything for.”

Mills and other American soldiers were taken at the Hürtgen Forest battle near the Germany-Luxembourg border, holing up in a three-story house when a German bazooka breached the stone structure and injured Mills from the shrapnel.

Things deteriorated quickly after that. The Germans imprisoned the surrendering Americans and shot the mayor of the small town. Mills said the soldiers feared they would also all be killed — but instead they began a months-long march across Europe which the U.S. Army estimates claimed the lives of all but 250 of the 1,200 men originally taken.

Amid the adversity, Mills said a Bible his mother had given him nourished his and other soldiers’ souls even as many lost nearly half their body weight from hunger.

My mother sent me a little New Testament…the kind that had a metal backing on the cover. She told me to wear that over my heart,” he said. “I did. What’s so important about that New Testament is that, while I was a prisoner…we all would take turns reading that New Testament to help take our minds off being hungry.”

Mills, a Decatur native, is a recipient of the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Battle of the Bulge ribbon.