SARANAC LAKE — A North Country native was featured in a television series sharing vivid and personal recollections of World War II.
The History Channel recently started to air "WWII in HD," a 10-hour series broadcast on five consecutive nights, showing the horror and heroes of "The War to End All Wars."
Original color footage, shot by military personnel and individuals from all over the world, was painstakingly assembled into a collection of images supported by the soundtrack of memories of surviving soldiers and letters from the men and women immersed in the battlefields of war.
Among those featured is U.S. Army Cpl. Archie Sweeney of Saranac Lake, who served in the European Theater in North Africa with the H Company in the 39th Infantry of the 9th Division.
The profile on the History Channel Web site states that Sweeney was "a hard-working, quiet young man who worked two jobs while attending high school, tending his family farm, hunting for food and looking after his eight younger siblings.
"When the peace-time draft was instituted in 1940, Archie was the first person in his town to be called up," the biography states. "He was almost immediately shipped off to Fort Bragg, N.C., for basic training.
"The attack on Pearl Harbor and America's subsequent entrance into the war was a shocking experience for Archie.
"His simple background had left him with no real sense of the impending war and no way to understand the full scope of it.
"After he is sent to North Africa, Archie writes home to his family during a quiet evening, telling them that he 'thinks the war is coming to an end.' He has no idea that North Africa alone is not 'the war,' and it is most certainly not 'coming to an end.'"
The series is available by pre-order from the History Channel for $29.95 for the DVD format and $39.95 for a Blu-Ray version.
Shipments begin Jan. 15.
