Vernon McGarity

He returned wounded to save that squad from advancing tanks.

Vernon McGarity was born in Right, Tennessee, on 1 December 1921. During the Depression he served in the Civilian Conservation Corps. He married Ethelene Nunn in 1942 and was drafted into the Army shortly before his twenty-first birthday. The couple’s first child died in infancy while his military training was beginning.

McGarity joined the 393rd Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division. Training took him through Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas before the regiment sailed for Britain in the autumn of 1944. His daughter was born around the time he left. After a short stay in England, the regiment landed in France and moved into Belgium.

On 16 December 1944, at the opening of the Battle of the Bulge, McGarity was wounded in an artillery barrage near Krinkelt. His Medal of Honor citation records that he obtained treatment but refused evacuation and returned to lead his squad. Throughout the fighting he encouraged the men to hold their position and went into exposed ground to rescue wounded soldiers.

When German tanks and infantry attacked, he disabled the leading tank with a rocket launcher. Later he crossed approximately one hundred yards under fire to replenish his squad’s ammunition. After an enemy machine gun threatened their route of escape, he left cover and shot its crew, preventing the position from being reoccupied. His squad held out until its ammunition was completely exhausted and the survivors were captured. The citation credits this delaying action with helping the Americans assemble reserves and form a stronger defensive line (Congressional Medal of Honor Society, https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/vernon-mcgarity).

McGarity spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner at Stalag VII-A and was liberated in April 1945. President Harry S. Truman presented the Medal of Honor at the White House on 18 December 1945. He returned to his family and continued a life of service rather than treating the decoration as the end of his military career.

In 1947 he joined the Tennessee Army National Guard, eventually rising to lieutenant-colonel before retiring in 1974. He also worked in veterans’ services, helping other former servicemen obtain assistance. He died in the Memphis area on 21 May 2013, aged ninety-one, and was buried in Memorial Park Cemetery. His postwar career extended the responsibility for fellow soldiers visible in the citation into decades of military and civilian work.