Biography
O'Brien joined the Army from his birth city of Troy, New York, and by June 20, 1944 was serving as a lieutenant colonel in the 1st Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment, 27th Infantry Division. On that day, on Saipan in the Marianas Islands, he braved enemy fire to reach several American tanks which were unknowingly firing on their own troops. The next week, on June 28, he orchestrated and personally led an attack on a Japanese held ridge. When his battalion came under attack from a much larger enemy force on July 7, he refused to leave the front lines even after being wounded, and continued to lead his men until being overrun and killed. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on May 9, 1945, for his actions throughout the battle for Saipan.
O'Brien, aged 44 or 45 at his death, was buried at Saint Peter's Cemetery in his hometown of Troy, New York.
Read more about this topic: William J. O'Brien (Medal Of Honor)
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“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)
“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)