Private First Class Edward Gomez

Born in 1932 in Omaha, Nebraska, he attended Omaha High School before enlisting in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1949. In Korea, he participated in three operations and was wounded in June 1951. With a strong premonition of death, he wrote his mother in September: "I am writing this on the possibility that I may die in this next assault. I am not sorry I died, because I died fighting for my country and that's the Number One thing in everyone's life, to keep his home and country from being won over by such things as communism ... .Tell Dad I died like the man he wanted me to be.”

On 14 September, he was killed on Kanmubong Ridge, while serving as an ammunition bearer with Company E, 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, and saving the lives of four of his squad members.

His Medal of Honor citation reads, in part:

Boldly advancing with his squad in support of a group of riflemen assaulting a series of strongly fortified and bitterly defended hostile positions on Hill 749. Private First Class Gomez consistently exposed himself to the withering barrage to keep his machine-gun supplied with ammunition during the drive forward to seize the objective. As his squad deployed to meet an imminent counterattack, he voluntarily moved down an abandoned trench to search for a new location for the gun and, when a hostile grenade landed between himself and his weapon, shouted a warning to those around him as he grasped the activated charge in his hand. Determined to save his comrades, he unhesitatingly chose to sacrifice himself and, diving into the ditch with the deadly missile, absorbed the shattering violence of the explosion in his own body.

After the war, a plaque was dedicated in his honor at the Omaha Boys Club.

Department of Defense Photo (UCMC) A46968