Pat McCrory remembers what his grandfather said about being stationed at Charlotte's Camp Greene in 1917.
The streets, left unpaved, were impassible stretches of thick, wet, red clay.
Barracks, consisting of canvas tents, were stuffed with elbow-to-elbow troops.
And by the time 24-year-old Walter McCrory left for France and World War I, he and his fellow soldiers "were thoroughly hardened for war."
On Sunday, about 30 Charlotteans gathered in a westside church to honor Camp Greene -- the massive training camp that housed 60,000 soldiers -- and to mark the 75th anniversary of the armistice of World War I.
The congregation sang patriotic hymns. A bagpiper played.
Speakers, including Chatlotte city council member McCrory, talked of the war's impact on the people who served in it.
Rep. Mel Watt, D-NC., a Charlottean, urged listeners to get involved "to protect the freedoms and liberties of our country."
And the Rev. Henry Finch prayed for peace.
"All of us must learn to live together," he said, "or we shall indeed perish together."
Walter Padgett, 62, a marine who fought in the Korean War, said he came because he felt it was the right thing to do.
"Any country that forgets its history is bound to repeat it," he said.
Organizers planned Sunday's event, ln part, to help people remember this big part of Charlotte's past.
To win Camp Greene, Charlotte competed against Wilmington, Fayetteville and Athens, Ga. When Army Gen. Leonard Wood came to look at sites on July 5, 1917, the city offered up fine wine, hospitality and big-wig delegations.
Charlotte's successful bid turned the city upside-down. More than 7,500 workers were hired to build the camp; the Army spent $6 million.
From Sept. 3, 1917, to June 30, 1919, the 2,600-acre camp housed more than 60,000 men, mostly infantry troops. Charlotte's population then was just 46,000.
Although Camp Greene was quickly dismantled after the war, historians agree it changed the city. The camp helped Charlotte grow as a business center and become ranked as a major New South city.
Today, little is left of Camp Greene besides a few historic markers, the graves of some of its soldiers, and the two-story James C. Dowd House, a restored 1879 farmhouse on Monument Street that was the camp's headquarters. The camp site itself is now a part of a neighborhood around Wilkinson Boulevard.
Pat McCrory took his grandfather back to the area six years ago, where he reminisced about his days at Camp Greene. "The Carolinas," McCrory said Sunday, "had had a great impact on that 24-year-old man from Milwaukee, Wisconsin."