Gale R. Hill was born on Christmas Day over 92 years ago. He lives in Lake City and has a story to tell, like so many Second World War veterans. Gale’s infantry unit was attached to Patton’s Third Army during the brutal Battle of the Bulge and he spent his 19th birthday in a foxhole as a huge German offensive pushed deep into the thin American lines. Gale was born Dec. 25, 1925 on a farm near Wyattville in southeastern Minnesota. A fierce blizzard with gale-force winds welcomed Gale Hill into the world that day and his father, who was a First World War veteran, said that was the reason Gale was named “Gale.”