Image: Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n Audie Murphy<\/a> was one of the most decorated American soldiers of World War II. He\u00a0had always wanted to be a solider\u00a0and tried to enlist shorty after the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, he was denied\u00a0by the Army, Navy and Marine Corps for being underage. After his sister provided an affidavit falsifying his birth date by a year, he was accepted by the U.S. Army. At the age of 19, he received the Medal of Honor after single-handedly holding off an entire company of German soldiers for an hour, and then leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition. Murphy would\u00a0receive every military combat award of valor available from the U.S. Army. After the war, he enjoyed a successful acting career and even played himself in the 1949 movie,\u00a0To Hell and Back<\/em>.<\/p>\n Steve McQueen<\/strong><\/p>\n Image: U.S. National Archives and Records Adminstration<\/em><\/p>\n Before he was known as the “King of Cool,” Steve McQueen<\/a> served in the United States Marine Corps.\u00a0When he first joined in 1947, he was promoted to private first class and assigned to an armored unit. However, his rebellious nature got the best of him and he was demoted back to private several\u00a0times. He once spent 41 days in the brig after failing to return from his weekend pass. He stayed out with his girlfriend for two weeks before he was caught. After\u00a0his indiscretions, McQueen\u00a0strove to embrace the values of the Marines. During a training exercise\u00a0in the Arctic, the ship McQueen was aboard hit a sandbank, sending tanks and crewmen into the water. McQueen jumped in and managed to save five of the men. He was later assigned to the honor guard and was responsible for guarding President Harry Truman’s<\/a> yacht. He served until 1950 and was honorably discharged.<\/p>\n James Garner<\/strong><\/p>\n Image: Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n Actor James Garner<\/a> was born James Scott Bumgarner in Norman, Oklahoma.\u00a0He joined the Merchant Marine and National Guard before he was drafted to serve\u00a0in the Korean War. He earned two Purple Hearts during the war, but didn’t receive it until 1983. A mixup was the cause of the delay\u00a0and it wasn’t discovered until Garner commented that he never received the medal\u00a0during\u00a0an interview with\u00a0Good Morning America<\/em>.<\/p>\n Charles Schulz<\/strong><\/p>\n Image: Library of Congress<\/i><\/p>\n In 1943, cartoonist Charles Schulz<\/a> was drafted into the U.S. military. He served as a staff sergeant with the 20th Armored Division in Europe and as a squad leader on a .50 caliber machine gun team. His unit helped lead the charge on Munich and liberate the Dachau concentration camp. During his time in Europe, Schulz saw little combat. He only had one opportunity to fire his machine gun, but in that moment, forgot to load it. Fortunately for him, the German soldier had willingly surrendered. He was discharged in late 1945\u00a0and went on to create the beloved\u00a0Peanuts<\/em> comic strip.<\/p>\n Clint Eastwood<\/strong><\/p>\n Image: Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n In 1951, Clint Eastwood<\/a> was attending Seattle University when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was assigned to Fort Ord in California and appointed as a lifeguard and swimming instructor. Although he never saw combat during the Korean War, it didn’t keep Eastwood\u00a0from having his own life threatening experience. Returning\u00a0from a visit to see his parents in Seattle, Eastwood caught a free plane ride on a Douglas AD bomber. The plane ran out of gas and crashed into the ocean. He and the\u00a0pilot escaped and swam 3 miles\u00a0in shark infested waters to safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s Veterans Day! Today we celebrate the men and women who have served\u00a0in\u00a0the armed forces. Do you have military veterans in your family? Check out these famous folks who have served their country: Audie Murphy Image: Wikimedia Commons Audie Murphy was one of the most decorated American soldiers of World War II. He\u00a0had always wanted to be a solider\u00a0and tried to enlist shorty after the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, he was denied\u00a0by the Army,… Read the full story<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":91262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3751],"tags":[6468,6469,5223,6139,6047,4667],"class_list":["post-91238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fun-with-genealogy","tag-audie-murphy","tag-charles-schulz","tag-clint-eastwood","tag-james-garner","tag-steve-mcqueen","tag-veterans-day"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91238"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91263,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91238\/revisions\/91263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Audie](\"http:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Murphy_uniform.jpg\")
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