OBITUARIES - June 11, 2009

George Wahlen, who as a Navy pharmacist’s mate during World War II tended to more than a dozen casualties on Iwo Jima while seriously wounded himself and who received the Medal of Honor for his actions, died Friday in Salt Lake City at the Veterans Affairs hospital named in his honor. He was 84 and had lung cancer.

After World War II, the former Navy corpsman entered the Army, serving in various capacities in the medical field for 20 years and retiring as a major.

During the battle of Iwo Jima, which gave the United States a strategic base for missions against Japan toward the end of the war, Wahlen was a Navy corpsman attached to the Marine Corps in late February and early March 1945.

He was injured in the eye by mortar shell shrapnel, but refused to be evacuated. He “defied the continuous pounding of heavy mortars and deadly fire of enemy rifles to care for the wounded, working rapidly in an area swept by constant fire and treating 14 casualties before returning to his own platoon,” read his citation for the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest award for valor.

Less than a month later, after shrapnel broke one of his legs, Wahlen continued to provide medical aid on the battlefield.

“I bandaged myself up, took a shot of morphine and crawled over and started helping a Marine that had both his legs blown off,” he later told the Salt Lake Tribune. He said of his decision to stay and help: “When you’ve been with these guys, they’re like family. You don’t want to let them down.”

George Edward Wahlen was born Aug. 8, 1924, in Ogden, Utah. He earned a bachelor’s degree at what is now Brigham Young University-Hawaii.

After his Navy discharge, Wahlen joined the Army and served in Korea and Vietnam during those wars.

Survivors include his wife of 62 years, Melba Holley Wahlen; five children; 27 grandchildren; and 42 great-grandchildren.

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