Lee Geiger

I just did what the only alternative was at the time. There was nothing else to do.

Robert Maxwell

The slight, bespectacled man with thin lips and honest eyes stood in line like the rest of his class, dressed in a puffy royal blue cap and gown ensemble and patiently waiting to hear his name called. Soon he would proudly step up to the podium, shake the hand of the principal and take possession of a well-deserved piece of parchment proclaiming he had met the requirements to graduate from high school. Like overpriced yachts ignoring a buoy signaling the correct way to navigate a harbor, the vast majority of the Bend (OR) Senior High School Class of 2011 were either too stoned or too busy taking selfies to notice that the kind and humble man standing in their midst was wearing a five-star medal around his neck.

He didn’t complain, though, because earning your high school diploma, even at the age of 90, was the right thing to do.

Robert Maxwell, or Bob as his friends called him, quit going to school in the seventh grade because his family, ravaged by the Great Depression, needed his help to keep the family farm in Kansas afloat. His parents separated when he was a baby, and because his mother worked as a tireless traveling salesman, Bob was raised by his maternal grandparents. To make financial ends meet, during the summers, before the fall harvest season, Bob traveled to Oregon where he got paid to pick fruit.

Bob didn’t complain, though, because dropping out of school to support your family was the right thing to do.

One Sunday in 1937, when Bob was 17, a huge dust cloud blew in from Nebraska. Fierce winds blew all day and night across the Kansas prairie. The air was thick with dust–midday could have been midnight. Bob wore a scarf around his face and held onto a rope to get to the barn to feed the animals. When the ferocious gale finally waned, buildings were buried up to the eaves. All the top soil had gone, leaving bedrock too hard to replant. Along with many Dust Bowl survivors, Bob’s family packed up to find a place where they could make a living. They decided to go to Oregon.

Bob didn’t complain, though, because moving on from tragedy was the right thing to do.

But by the time they made it to Colorado, Bob’s grandpa had fallen ill. Bob spent the next year working on a nearby cattle ranch before setting out again for Oregon. However, close to the base of the Rocky Mountains, his grandpa got sick again. They couldn’t continue to travel, so Bob once again spent the next year working at a timber ranch.

Bob didn’t complain, though, because staying strong when times were tough was the right thing to do.

In June of 1941, Bob received a letter telling him to report for service in the United States Army. Raised in the Quaker faith, the army offered Bob “Conscientious Objector” status. But he refused, saying it was a privilege to fight for his country. In February 1942, Bob was sent overseas and landed in North Africa at Casablanca. Since radios were easily jammed by the Germans, Bob was reassigned as a battalion communications technician, a “wire man” who carried a heavy roll of cable and was tasked with stringing phone lines from the battlefield to the command post so the company commander could call in firing orders via telephone. It was formally a noncombatant role, but bullets and shells might be whizzing over his head while he was atop poles, trees or roofs going about his work.

Bob didn’t complain, though, because following orders during wartime was the right thing to do.

In June 1943, Bob took part in the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy. On January 29, 1944, during the Battle of Anzio, Bob, while repairing damaged communication lines under intense enemy fire for over three hours, was severely wounded in both legs. He was awarded the Silver Star and a Purple Heart, and he spent the next three months in a hospital in Naples. On June 5, the day before D-Day, Bob was released from the hospital so he could rejoin his unit in time for the invasion of Southern France.

Bob didn’t complain, though, because sacrificing for your country was the right thing to do.

In the early morning hours of September 7, Bob was on the roof of a small, pockmarked stone farmhouse on the outskirts of Besancon, France, stringing wire from house to house to the battalion commander’s phone line. Suddenly, a German platoon, armed with machine guns and 20mm antiaircraft weapons, attacked the battalion command post from a ditch near a railroad track located just ten yards away. As bullets sheared tiles from the roof, Bob leapt to the ground and joined five U.S. infantry men crouched below a 4-foot stone wall topped with a wire-mesh fence. All were armed with nothing more than .45 caliber pistols. Bob joined the fray, firing his own gun at the sparks in the dark. A hand grenade was hurled over the chicken wire in front of the farmhouse’s cement courtyard, landing near Bob’s feet. He heard the grenade land but could not see it. Bob searched blindly through the darkness, precious seconds ticking away. When he finally found the grenade, he did the only thing that made sense. Clutching a blanket to his chest, he dropped on the device, using his body to absorb the full force of the blast to save the lives of his comrades.

Bob didn’t complain, though, because falling on a hand grenade and sacrificing your life in order to spare your fellow soldiers was the right thing to do.

As it happened, the explosion was contained against the stone wall, and all six men were spared. Bob was knocked unconscious, one part of his foot torn away, and his head and left bicep peppered with shrapnel. “I could hear it fall right near my feet,” said Bob. “I didn’t know for sure where it was. This was between 1 and 2 in the morning. I groped to find it and throw it back, but I knew it was too late to do that. I was already crouched down, but I did have my blanket, shoved it down on my chest and dropped where I was. I must have kicked the grenade, because it blew a hole in my steel-toed boot and tore up my foot really bad.” When Bob regained consciousness, the post was deserted; his fellow soldiers, apparently thinking Bob had died, had evacuated the position as ordered. Bob staggered into the farmhouse, where he found his commanding officer gathering phone lines. “I draped my arm over his solder, bled all over him, and we left,” said Bob. An Army jeep picked them up and ferried them to an aid station, where Bob received treatment as artillery fire obliterated the farmhouse.

Returning to the hospital in Naples, doctor’s repaired Bob’s right foot, but shrapnel had ripped through his temple; he couldn’t see out of his left eye. Hoping doctors in the States could safely remove the shrapnel and restore his eyesight, the U.S. Army sent him home. Once back in the states, a surgeon removed the metal fragments from Bob’s temple, and his eye regained the ability to see.

Seven months later, on April 6, 1945, Robert Maxwell was awarded the United States Congressional Medal of Honor, as well as his second Silver Star and Purple Heart. “It’s not the case that I was brave or a hero or anything like that,” said Bob. “I just did what the only alternative was at the time. There was nothing else to do.”

After the war, Bob enrolled in vocational school to become an auto mechanic, eventually settling down and teaching high school and community college auto mechanics in Bend, Oregon. He met Beatrice, his wife of 63 years, in church, and they raised four beautiful daughters.

Bob died on May 11, 2019, at the age of 98. He didn’t complain, though, because he had lived a good life doing the right thing.