WWII Veteran turns 100; shares about his time in the Army
'I was in the infantry in the platoons. We carried the mortar weapons,' he said.
McClellan spent most of his time in Rome after he was drafted into the Army.
'We were following a tank corps, and we were moving so fast that the German tank corps passed… They captured it,' he said. 'We used the same spring [as the Italians] for water. They'd fire shots. Nobody would fire at each other. They'd just shoot every once in a while… if you went to get water, they'd fire a couple of rounds over your head just to let you know that they were still there.'
Sister of fallen Blountville soldier reminds people of true meaning behind Memorial Day
He remembers the day he found out President Roosevelt died.
'They got everybody together and was telling them about that,' McClellan said. 'Then the Germans launched a few shells over and killed two or three at that.'
McClellan ended up in the kitchen, on the advice of his friend. He mostly drew up rations.
'He signed us up [to be] cooks. I said, 'I can't boil water.' He said I can't neither,' McClellan recalled. 'But he said I thought it'd be safer, so that's where I spent my time in Rome.'
The Army helped him get his education after he got out. He then landed a job at Eastman. He's also been involved in the Gate City community.
'About 63 years I've been in Civitan,' he said. 'It gives you a sense of helping people. And we help a lot of people and a lot of things, and all clubs do that.'
Friends and family gathered at the Civitan Park to celebrate his milestone birthday.
'I just keep breathing, I don't know why I'm here. I don't think I've done anything different,' he said. 'They just haven't rung the bell yet.'
News Channel 11 asked McClellan what he did to make it to this milestone.
'I tried to take care of myself, and if I have a sickness, I don't try to doctor myself,' he said.
He also encouraged others to get involved in their community, whether it be a club or a church, because he fears volunteerism is dying out.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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We are committed to transforming cancer care by developing innovative, first and best-in-class immunological and targeted therapies for rare and difficult-to-treat cancers with high unmet need. For more information on Sarclisa clinical studies, please visit About the German-speaking Myeloma Multicenter Group GMMG is the largest study group focusing on MM in Germany, with headquarters based in Heidelberg. Within the last 20+ years, the GMMG study group has performed numerous studies including five randomized, multicenter phase 3 studies with 4,000 patients enrolled from about 90 participating and cotreating centers throughout Germany. The overall goal of GMMG is to generate improved therapies for myeloma patients through the development and testing of novel and personalized, genome- and signaling driven treatment strategies. 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Sanofi is listed on EURONEXT: SAN and NASDAQ: SNY Media RelationsSandrine Guendoul | +33 6 25 09 14 25 | Evan Berland | +1 215 432 0234 | Léo Le Bourhis | +33 6 75 06 43 81 | Victor Rouault | +33 6 70 93 71 40 | Timothy Gilbert | +1 516 521 2929 | Léa Ubaldi | +33 6 30 19 66 46 | Investor RelationsThomas Kudsk Larsen | +44 7545 513 693 | Alizé Kaisserian | +33 6 47 04 12 11 | Felix Lauscher | +1 908 612 7239 | Keita Browne | +1 781 249 1766 | Nathalie Pham | +33 7 85 93 30 17 | Tarik Elgoutni | +1 617 710 3587 | Thibaud Châtelet | +33 6 80 80 89 90 | Yun Li | +33 6 84 00 90 72 | Sanofi forward-looking statementsThis press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. These statements include projections and estimates regarding the marketing and other potential of the product, or regarding potential future revenues from the product. Forward-looking statements are generally identified by the words 'expects', 'anticipates', 'believes', 'intends', 'estimates', 'plans', and similar expressions. Although Sanofi's management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, investors are cautioned that forward-looking information and statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Sanofi, that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. These risks and uncertainties include among other things, unexpected regulatory actions or delays, or government regulation generally, that could affect the availability or commercial potential of the product, the fact that product may not be commercially successful, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including future clinical data and analysis of existing clinical data relating to the product, including post marketing, unexpected safety, quality or manufacturing issues, competition in general, risks associated with intellectual property and any related future litigation and the ultimate outcome of such litigation, and volatile economic and market conditions, and the impact that global crises may have on us, our customers, suppliers, vendors, and other business partners, and the financial condition of any one of them, as well as on our employees and on the global economy as a whole. 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