WWII veteran celebrates 100th birthday alongside family, friends

Raymond Sproul, a Selbyville resident and World War II veteran, celebrated his 100th birthday a day early July 19, alongside his loved ones at a party at American Legion Post 28 near Millsboro.

“I’ve been lying to all of you,” joke Raymond, known to loved ones as Ray, Poppy and Uncle Junior. “I’m only 45, and I just said this to get a party going.”

Humor – and Budweiser, he laughed – fuels his life. 

Around 90 of his friends and relatives attended the party, including his surviving stepchildren, step-grandchildren, grandnieces/nephews, great-grandnieces/nephews, and even several great-great-grandnieces and nephews whom he was delighted to meet for the first time.  

To honor his service in the U.S. Navy, the honor guard conducted a flag-folding ceremony. He was then presented with a separate flag, which was flown over his ship, the U.S.S. Iowa, which he serviced on around 1947.

He also received a proclamation from Gov. Matt Meyer and a letter of appreciation and Navy hat from American Legion Post 28.

Yet, over and over, he said, “Please don’t treat me like a hero. I never did anything heroic in the service. I just did what I was told.”

Born June 20, 1925 in Baltimore, Raymond grew up during the Great Depression, which he said was hard. Nevertheless, his parents were very good providers for him and his three sisters, and he said they had a wonderful life as children.

“Mom would turn us loose at 7 in the morning and not see us until dinner time at night and not have to worry about [anything],” he said. “We always had a policeman on the beat in those days, Officer Kelly, and he stayed with us as children; he played our games.”

Things changed when Raymond joined the Navy during World War II.

He first tried to enlist when he was 16, on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack. They didn’t take him until the following year, once he turned 17.

“I went in as a child and came home as an adult,” he said. 

Still seared into his memory is one fateful day in Russia’s Murmansk Harbor, when German aircrafts began striking at his ship. 

“We were getting ready to commence fire on this aircraft,” he said. “I turned around to take the clip of a 40-millimeter ammunition from my first loader, and [my friend] was straight through with machine gun shells. He laid on the deck wiggling, and I dropped down alongside of him, and I held him until he died.”

Scared to death, in that moment, Raymond said, he went from a kid to a man. 

He stayed in the Navy until the end of war. Afterward, when he came home, he realized his time in the service changed him. 

Not satisfied with civilian life, he went back into the Navy and served until the late 1940s.

In 1958, he moved to Delaware, working as a heavy equipment mechanic at Ocean Pines in Maryland. 

He and his late wife Florence, a below-5-foot Italian woman, married in the early 1980s. 

“My life never really began until I married my wonderful wife,” Raymond said. “And she gave me this wonderful, wonderful family.”

The two moved to Magnolia Shores in the 1980s, and he’s lived there ever since.

“I like to refer to Magnolia Shores as paradise,” he said. “And if it’s not paradise, it’s the second thing to it.”

His neighbors, he said, are the best in the world. Since Florence died in 2017, they have been very supportive and are always helping him.

One of his neighbors, Lisa, posted about his birthday on Facebook, asking people to send him birthday cards, hoping to get 100. So far, according to Raymond’s stepdaughter Renée Miceli, he has received nearly 200 cards, including one from Australia.

Although Raymond gets around in a wheelchair, he doesn’t let that slow him down.

He’s still very independent and lives alone, doing all of his own housework, cooking and laundry. He even cuts his own grass.

Through all of the jokes he cracked at the party, he made sure to express his gratitude and love for everyone who was there.

“I have the greatest neighbors, and the greatest friends, and the greatest relatives in the world,” he said. “I love you all, and I really want to thank you for this.”

“I’ve lived a full life. I’ve lived a great life. And as Frank Sinatra [said], I did it my way.”