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GREENSBORO — Most of them didn’t know much about the military.

Maybe they knew of someone who had worn the uniform. Like their Uncle Junebug. But that was it. Any idea of an armed conflict, past or present, seemed distant and irrelevant to their busy lives at N.C. A&T.

Not anymore.

They’ve done PT and learned how to salute. They’ve sat in a big circle, perched on their edge of their seats, and listened to war veterans reveal personal stories of sacrifice, duty, responsibility and death.

So, this weekend, as everyone around them celebrates the blue-and-gold present during A&T’s homecoming, these 10 A&T seniors — along with two UNCG students and a UNCG grad — will honor the sepia-toned past.

They’re performing “A Soldier’s Play.’’ It’ll run for the next two weeks at Paul Robeson Theater and bring to campus the 1940s and the suffocating grip of hate, ignorance and fear in the Deep South following a murder on a military base.

The play won a Pulitzer and became a movie in 1984, “A Soldier’s Story,’’ which earned three Academy Award nominations for best picture, best supporting actor and best adaptation of a screenplay.

At A&T, for these members of today’s hip-hop generation, the play became a window into another world where the ticket to success — and acceptance — was based on the color of your skin, the dialect of your home.

Now, these seniors didn’t grasp that during their afternoon sweat sessions of climbing ropes, doing four-man push-ups and shouting: “Help the man next to you! Don’t let him fail!’’

Those sessions with A&T’s ROTC helped them grasp the warrior within.

No, they grasped the world of the 1940s by listening to retired A&T professor Tom McFadden, a World War II veteran. One night last week, he held court in a third-floor classroom. He was living history.

In a soft, deliberate voice, he talked about his life as a black paratrooper, of defending his country, of marching in the Victory Parade in New York City, of showing the military elite “colored troops’’ could fight.

But he couldn’t shop in the same store as whites.

“I’ve been very disturbed to hear people say forget it, but it’s impossible to forget it,’’ McFadden told the actors seated around him. “Years pass you by. But the days remain when you were treated that way.’’

From all their days of physical training, of learning how to march and salute and about-face and turn, the senior actors will remember the words from a retired biology professor with the soft, deliberate voice.

“That was crazy, out of this world,’’ said Justin Peoples, 21, who’s playing Pfc. Melvin Peterson in the play. “You talk about doing research. But here’s Dr. McFadden, a man who lived it. I dissected every word.’’

Justin didn’t know anyone in the military except his Uncle Junebug, his mom’s brother.

And Darell Hunt, another student actor, didn’t know anybody.

But on opening night Thursday, as he laced up his boots before he took the stage as CJ Memphis in his uniform of Army green, Hunt talked about lessons learned. There were many.

“You really realize someone else fought, someone else died, someone else suffered so I could go to college and carry on,’’ said Hunt, 28. “That history — our history — shapes and defines us, and we can’t forget it.’’

There was a time Odori Miyako Hines tried. For four years, he was a Marine. He served in Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has struggled with what happened halfway across the globe.

His buddies were killed by snipers, soldiers, even children. He didn’t talk about it when he came to A&T. But with his role as Pvt. Louis Henson in “A Soldier’s Play,’’ he’s begun to open up.

With that has come a new outlook on who he was — and where he’s going.

“Every day, be thankful,’’ says Hines, 27. “I’m still living. I’m still alive.’’

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com