“This is living history,” teacher Teresa Royce told Sumner Elementary School students, when she introduced Roger Walsh and Leo Kerling. “This is what you’ve been reading about and studying,” the fourth/fifth grade teacher said.

Indeed, Walsh and Kerling are “living history.” Two veterans of World War II, who shared their experiences with the Sumner students on Veterans Day.

It may not be politically correct to mention the ages of the elderly, but in this case, it was patriotically correct: Kerling is 81 and Walsh 89.

The pair of World War II veterans and their “Greatest Generation” peers are increasingly falling victims to aging and Father Time.

In the near future, students may not be able to hear their “living history.”

Royce’s students prepared questions in advance for their guests to answer and they were good queries: How old are you? Were you afraid? How did you sleep?” “Were any of your friends in the war with you?” “Where did you fight?” and the most deadly serious “Did you kill or injure anybody?”

Kerling, a veterans of the U.S. Navy, graciously deferred center stage to the loquacious Walsh, who dazzled everyone, including his daughter, Sarah Landherr, who accompanied him to Sumner school, with his mental agility.

According to Walsh, he was 21 years old when he entered the U.S. Armed Forces in 1941. “I was one of 31 young men who enlisted for one year, but they kept me for 4 1/2 years,” he said. “I had lots of experiences that I was lucky to live through.”

“There was a saying in those days: There are no atheists on the front lines in combat,” he said.

Royce explained the black humor to her students.

Walsh and other U.S. Army soldiers sailed across the Atlantic Ocean for 16 days until arriving on the North Africa shore.

In response to a student’s question about any famous people he met during the war, Walsh told the story of the day he was part of a guard detail during a meeting of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill at Casablanca, Morocco.

Walsh, who lives in Austin, made $21 a month as a soldier, fighting in a war more than six decades ago. He advanced to the rank of staff sergeant.

He was a forward observer for an artillery unit and survived the German army’s relentless retaliatory attack on Allied forces after landing on the south Italy beach in 1944.

Walsh spent 532 days on the front lines, going without a bath or shower for three or four months at a time, received an Eisenhower jacket when he was discharged Aug. 14, 1945, Victory in Japan Day in American history.

A year ago, he visited Washington, D.C. to see the World War II Memorial; an experience, he said, made him feel “really, really good.”

Kerling sat near the rear of the classroom and said he enjoyed Walsh’s war stories. “He’s got more of them than I do,” Kerling said.

Kerling was one of five brothers to serve in World War II. Four were in the Navy and one in the Army.

Kerling served on a submarine rescue ship near the end of the war in the South Pacific.

An Austin native, Kerling recalled, “I was 17 and still in high school, when I went down to sign up for the war, but they wouldn’t let me.”

Told to “stay in school” by recruiters, Kerling did just that long enough before he reached 18 and entered the Navy.

He was trained as a radio operator.

After the veterans’ finished telling their stories, the students huddled around them to ask more questions and, at their teacher’s bidding, shake their hands and say “Thank you.”