Alonzo Herman Sorrell was born on January 23, 1894, in Sumner, Georgia. During World War I, Sorrell served with Company A of the 317th Machine Gun Battalion and was deployed overseas from July 1918 to June 1919. He was honorably discharged from the service in July 1919 but volunteered for the national guard the following year. As part of the Durham Machine Gun Company, Sorrell (who then held the rank of corporal) helped put down a lynch mob in Alamance County in July 1920. He died in Raleigh on August 28, 1980.