CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - Nearly a dozen veterans are staying in hotels after a fire damaged or destroyed their apartments in southeast Charlotte last month .

Many of them lost everything.

The local chapter of Blue Star Mothers of America said 12 veterans and their families were displaced, nine of whom are still looking for a place to stay.

Vance Cheeley, who served in the U.S. Army, is one of those residents who rushed out of their apartment to see it burning.

“It was traumatizing, I think looking at it, I didn’t really realize the magnitude of a fire,” Cheeley said. “When it actually happens to you, it’s sort of gut-wrenching, soul-snatching, just to see all your personal belongings, everything you own is gone in minutes.”

Blue Star Mothers Chapter President, Fostoria Pierson, has

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