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GREENSBORO — Some 65 years ago, he wasn’t known as Dick Behrends. He was simply called Bugs, the adventurous kid from Chicago.

At age 17, right after high school, he hitchhiked from his hometown to California because he and his buddy wanted to help build an airstrip on Wake Island, an island in the Pacific.

But they ran out of money.

His buddy joined the circus; he came home. But after seeing a patriotic movie, he volunteered for the Army. It was October 1942. Pearl Harbor, the date etched in infamy, was still fresh on his mind.

With his father and stepmother still sleeping, he stole out of his house at first light and began an odyssey in which he learned about his passion for art — and the meaning of sacrifice.

At only 18, he became a member of the 86th Blackhawk Division. He was a first-generation German, the only son of an industrial engineer who earned his nickname after scratching himself raw from the chigger bites he got during his training in Texas.

But Bugs got more than chigger bites. He got introduced to combat.

He finished his training at Camp San Luis Obispo in California and got shipped to Europe, the homeland of his grandparents, where he fought the Nazis during the waning days of the war.

He fought in three battles. He also got lost in the snow. When he did, he and four of his fellow soldiers ended up liberating a few hundred prisoners held in a Nazi slave labor camp. The Nazis retreated. Bugs and his fellow soldiers didn’t fire a shot.

After Japan’s surrender, Bugs went to the Philippines to help train the Philippine army, guard prisoners of war and squash any pockets of resistance.

There, Bugs the soldier became By Crackey the cartoonist. He drew cartoons for the base’s weekly newspaper, On The Way, and stumbled into something that made him happy: art.

After spending three years and three months in the Army, he married a flight attendant and raised a family in Greensboro, his wife’s hometown. He became a graphic designer and later opened his own advertising agency in High Point.

Bugs became Dick Behrends, advertising executive.

Art always remained a good memory until he retired seven years ago. This time, he picked up sculpture and created out of wax and plasteline clay the mythic figures he first saw at Chicago’s Patio Theatre.

It was on the big screen. All for a ticket that cost a dime. Cowboys and Indians.

He gave his sculptures no-nonsense names like “Texas Dust Up’’ and “Lakota Dispute.’’ But two years ago, after finishing nearly 50 sculptures, he wanted to honor the 86th.

He wanted to sculpt a soldier, an image forever burned in his memory.

He first completed an 18-inch version and approached the Blackhawk Division Association. He got the green light.

The association raised $130,000. It helped him create his first lifesize statue — as well as a memorial — at the camp where he learned to be a soldier, the spot where he slept in tar-paper shacks amid the rolling hills of California.

Camp San Luis Obispo.

In September, he returned to dedicate the statue. He hadn’t been there since he was a raw-boned recruit. Now, he was 86, a grandfather, a retired advertising exec, a man who kept his emotions in check.

But when he spoke in front of a crowd of at least 400, his voice cracked. He knew he wouldn’t see many of his friends again. This was their last reunion. For many, travel had become too tough.

Yet, these old soldiers had to get together one last time. They wanted to see the life-size soldier, created and cast in bronze in Greensboro, trucked to California and erected just beyond the camp’s gate for every new soldier to see.

Today, as Veterans Day approaches, he still gets letters of congratulation. Some are hard to read. The handwriting, wracked by old age, makes a few sentences look like one long scrawl.

But you can make some words out, like “great job,’’ “artistic skill’’ and “Blackhawk spirit alive.’’

That’s what Behrends wanted, the soldier nicknamed Bugs.

To remember. And never forget.

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