"I draped an arm over his shoulder, bled all over him, and we left," Maxwell said. A jeep picked them up and ferried them to an aid station, where Maxwell received medical treatments as artillery obliterated the farmhouse and courtyard.
The grenade had wounded his right foot, torn his left bicep and struck his temple near his left eye. But although Maxwell was "permanently maimed" according to his Medal of Honor citation, his actions "saved the lives of his comrades in arms and facilitated maintenance of vital military communications during the temporary withdrawal of the battalion's forward headquarters.
Maxwell was presented with the Medal of Honor in May 1945, while convalescing at Camp Carson in Colorado. Days earlier his former commander, Ramsey, had helped lead the 3rd Infantry into Austria, where members of the division liberated Salzburg and Berchtesgaden and pressed on toward Hitler's Eagle's Nest, his mountaintop retreat.
Robert Dale Maxwell was born in Boise, Idaho, on October 26, 1920 and raised by his grandparents in western Kansas. He left school to work on their farm and received his high school diploma in 2011 at age 90.
Although he had a Quaker upbringing, Maxwell decided against being a conscientious objector and enlisted in the Army in 1942. He received two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts during the war.
After the war, he taught auto mechanics at high schools and county colleges in central Oregon.
Quite the Hero. --GreGen
