War heroes seldom choose their battles. All they can do is rise to the occasion. For 1st Lt. Charles L. Thomas, the defining moment in his military career was a company-sized fight five miles from the German border.

It was Dec. 14, 1944.

Just two days later, however, the battle’s strategic importance would be relegated to the sidelines amid the mammoth German counterattack in the Ardennes Forest soon known to the Americans as the Battle of the Bulge .

When Charles Leroy Thomas was born on April 20, 1920, there were few opportunities for Black Americans in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.

His family, therefore, sought better prospects by joining the Black exodus northward, settling in Wayne, Michigan. After graduating from the Cass Technical High School in 1938, Thomas worked as a

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