Bud Gormally walked onto a ship filled with corpses and saw a man sitting with one elbow on his knee and his face in his hands. As Gormally asked if he could help, the man sat up, removed his hands and his face fell off.

“It was really an eye opener for me,” says John Woods, who portrays Gormally in the upcoming play “Heroes Among Us.”

“Even though you are taught the history of World War II in school, they never go into specific stories the way that this play does.”

“Heroes” is a play that Jane Cox, associate professor of theater, and Patrick Gouran, associate professor of music have co-written as a tribute to the veterans of WWII.

“A little more than three years ago, Patrick and I began interviewing veterans from central Iowa,” Cox says. “Our goal was to show that there are people all around us that have accomplished heroic things, and we could pass them on the street and not even notice them.”

Cox says all of the branches of the services are represented in the play.

“We talked to each person about an average of 15 to 20 hours,” she says. “They are remarkable people.”

The title represents not only those interviewed, Cox says, but those who did not return from the war.

Courage was something Cox wanted to feature in the play.

“Everyone interviewed talked about how afraid they were during the stories,” she says. “Real courage is still doing what you are supposed to do even though you might be frightened.”

“The goal of the playwright was to not dramatize it; the stories are the drama itself,” says Kristin Wolff, sophomore in performing arts. “The play is a great mix of looking at the innocence of life before the war, and looking at the reality of what happened.”

Wolff’s character, Ruth Miller, is the only female portrayed in the play. She represents the medical branch of the military.

“I feel like I am sort of representing a lot of women, which is a scary challenge,” she says. “There are a lot of women overlooked. It is really neat that I get the chance to provide a tribute to them all.”

Wolff even met the woman she is portraying.

“When you are just looking at the lines, you can see bits of bravery and humor,” Wolff says. “Then to meet the person – you realize that every word, all of those things, are in them and make who they are today. It made it very real.”

Both Wolff and Woods found it difficult to portray the person they represent in the play.

“There is something about a fictitious character that provides a little safety in portraying them,” Wolff says. “With it being a true and real story, there is always the fear of jeopardizing the stories by misinterpretation.”

“The words speak for themselves,” Woods says. “Hopefully I am accurately portraying the man whose stories I am telling.”

According to Woods, accurately performing the stories is the most important part of the play.

“I have always believed that if you forget the past, you run the risk of making the same mistakes,” he says.

“If there are people out there who try to pretend [WWII and the Holocaust] never happened, they will never learn why not to do it again.”

Wolff says that too much was lost to forget the war.

“What happened, what people fought for, what they now live the rest of their lives with, memories, they did it for a reason,” she says. “There are lighthearted moments, especially with the uplifting end that each person felt after coming back from fighting for something so important. It wasn’t done in vain.”