Biography
A retail manager before the war, Christian joined the Army from Steubenville, Ohio in November 1942, and by June 3, 1944 he was serving as a private in the 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. In the early morning hours of that day, near Valmontone, Italy, his patrol was ambushed by a numerically superior enemy force. Although grievously wounded—his right leg had been severed by hostile fire—he gestured to his comrades to withdraw and advanced on the enemy positions alone, firing as he went. Although mortally wounded in the attack, he successfully created a diversion which allowed his fellow soldiers to escape. For these actions, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor a year later, on May 30, 1945.
Christian, aged 31 at his death, was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in his birth place of Byesville, Ohio.
Read more about this topic: Herbert F. Christian
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)