Monroe County has lost a World War II hero and undoubtedly one of its oldest veterans.

James Elmer Burnette, 96, of Sweetwater passed away Tuesday.

Burnette was a U.S Army soldiers who stormed Normandy Beach during World War II with thousands of other young American heroes.

For a country boy, raised as a sharecropper, being drafted into the U.S. Army was a big event in his life, his daughter Louise Barnes recalled in a 2011 article she submitted for The Advocate & Democrat's Hometown Heroes special section.

Born in 1916, raised in Roane and Loudon Counties, at age 26 Elmer was drafted and trained in several U.S. camps, including Fort Hood, Texas. He was then sent with his troop to New York via train, and recalls going with soldiers to Jack Dempsey's bar in New York and was awed by the sights of the huge city. He had never seen dancing on ice, and wanted to see Hollywood Canyon but this was on the other side of New York and they did not have the pass time to go.

See full story in the Sunday, Dec. 26, edition of The Advocate & Democrat.