AUGUSTA, Ga. - It's been called the greatest war ever, millions of men and women fought, served and died in World War II. Now, one Augusta man wants to tell their stories before it's too late.

The thousands of stories from World War II veterans are shrinking every day—lost forever with the death and passing of each soldier, but their memories will live on with help from those like Fred Gehle and the Veterans History Project.

The local project is run through the Augusta-Richmond County Historical Society.

Gehle is the Program Director for the Georgia-Carolina’s Veterans’ History Project. He's painstakingly working to catalog the experiences of all WWII veterans in Georgia-Carolina.

"So far I've located over 400 veterans. We have just over 200 interviews,” said Gehle. "We want to expedite this program because we do have several veterans who are in not the best of health. We've lost a few since the interviews because of health."

The project is a massive undertaking that Gehle couldn't do without the help of more than 40 volunteers, like Don Patterson, who's father fought in the war.

"What I'm trying to do is to get people to get this information out so that their sons and daughters and grandchildren know exactly what they did," said Patterson.

Stories from former soldiers like Navy veteran Clarence Stirewalt.

"I felt that I needed to be there to protect this country,” said Stirewalt. “I had two uncles in there and a brother in the Navy and that's the way we felt. We were dedicated to this country. We grew up in it. We never questioned it."

After all of the interviews are complete, they will be made into DVDs for the families. Copies will also be sent to the Library of Congress where it will join the interviews of more than 60,000 veterans to date in an effort to preserve history.

The undertaking is part of the national Veterans’ History Project.

Organizers say it will take them another year to complete the interviews.

If you know of a World War II veteran in our area who has not been interviewed, you can contact Fred Gehle at (706) 738-8242 or by email at: fpgehle@bellsouth.net.