Robert D. Reem

He shielded his platoon leaders from a grenade with his body

Robert Dale Reem grew up in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, where he played football, basketball and baseball at high school and served as a page in the state House of Representatives. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in August 1943. After recruit training and the Naval Academy Preparatory School, he entered the United States Naval Academy in June 1944 and graduated in June 1948. Commissioned a Marine second lieutenant, he completed further training at Quantico and married Donna Zimmerli in April 1949.

He served with the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines during a 1950 Mediterranean deployment before the battalion moved through the Suez Canal to Japan and joined the 7th Marines for operations in Korea. Reem fought during the capture of Seoul before advancing north.

Reem earned the Medal of Honor near Chinhung-ni, Korea, on November 6, 1950. A second lieutenant commanding a platoon in Company H, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, he led repeated attempts to capture fortified enemy positions.

After three attacks were repulsed, Reem reorganized his depleted platoon for another assault. While issuing orders to his noncommissioned officers, he saw a grenade land in their position. He jumped onto it, taking the explosion and saving the other men.

Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on October 20, 1925, Reem died in the action. His Medal of Honor was presented to his widow at the Pentagon on February 8, 1952. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Medal of Honor citation

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a platoon commander in Company H, in action against enemy aggressor forces. Grimly determined to dislodge a group of heavy enemy infantry units occupying well-concealed and strongly fortified positions on commanding ground overlooking unprotected terrain, 2d Lt. Reem moved slowly forward up the side of the ridge with his platoon in the face of a veritable hail of shattering hostile machine-gun, grenade, and rifle fire. Three times repulsed by a resolute enemy force in achieving his objective, and pinned down by the continuing fury of hostile fire, he rallied and regrouped the heroic men in his depleted and disorganized platoon in preparation for a fourth attack. Issuing last-minute orders to his non-commissioned officers when an enemy grenade landed in a depression of the rocky ground in which the group was standing, 2d Lt. Reem unhesitatingly chose to sacrifice himself and, springing upon the deadly missile, absorbed the full impact of the explosion in his body, thus protecting others from serious injury and possible death. Stouthearted and indomitable, he readily yielded his own chance of survival that his subordinate leaders might live to carry on the fight against a fanatic enemy. His superb courage, cool decisiveness, and valiant spirit of self-sacrifice in the face of certain death reflect the highest credit upon 2d Lt. Reem and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.