I Served Too Banner

Warren Oates
Warren Oates

RETURN TO INDEX
U.S. Marine Corps

WW2 Victory Medal
American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch (1969) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974).  He starred in numerous films during the early 1970s which have since achieved cult status including The Hired Hand (1971), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and Race with the Devil (1975).  Oates also portrayed Sergeant Hulka in the box office hit Stripes (1981).

Joined at 18 in 1946, because "I figured if I didn't, I'd end up in jail." He served two years as an airplane mechanic.
Hugh O'Brian
Hugh O'Brian

RETURN TO INDEX
U.S. Marine Corps

American Campaign Medal
WW2 Victory Medal
American actor, known for his starring role in the ABC television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955 to 1961).  During his early years with Universal he was confined as a secondary player to standard action pictures such as Red Ball Express (1952), Son of Ali Baba (1952) and Seminole (1953).  In 1954, he left Universal to freelance and was offered the starring role in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955) on TV, a year later.  It became a mainstay hit and Hugh an overnight star.  During his six-year run on the western classic, he managed to show off his singing talents on variety shows and appeared on Broadway.  He remained a durable talent throughout the 1960s and 1970s with plentiful work on the summer stock stage and on TV, including the series Search (1972).

Served in WW2.  Dropped out of the University of Cincinnati after one semester to enlist. Only 17, he became the youngest Marine drill instructor in the U.S.  He served 4 years and was discharged in 1947.  At one point he turned down an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, deciding instead to enroll at Yale University to study law.
Pat OBrien
Pat O'Brien

RETURN TO INDEX
U.S. Navy

WW1 Victory Medal
American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits.  O'Brien appeared with James Cagney in nine feature films, including Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and Cagney's last film, Ragtime (1981).  O'Brien may be best remembered for his role as a police detective in Some Like It Hot and the title role of a football coach in Knute Rockne, All American (1940), where he gave the speech to "win just one for the Gipper".  On April 4, 1957, he guest starred in the first season of the NBC variety program, The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford.  He had a small role as Burt Reynolds' father in the 1978 comedy film The End.

Served during WW1.  Reportedly, he also served with Jack Benny at Great Lakes Naval Station.
Carroll O'Connor
Carroll O'Connor

RETURN TO INDEX
U.S. Merchant Marine

WW2 Victory Medal
American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades.  Known at first for playing the role of Major General Colt in the 1970 movie, Kelly's Heroes, he later found fame as the bigoted working man Archie Bunker, the main character in the 1970s CBS television sitcoms All in the Family (1971 to 1979) and Archie Bunker's Place (1979 to 1983). O'Connor later starred in the NBC television crime drama In the Heat of the Night from 1988 to 1995, where he played the role of southern Police Chief William (Bill) Gillespie.

During WW2 was rejected by the United States Navy and instead enrolled in the United States Merchant Marine Academy for a short time.  However, he left that institution and became a merchant seaman. 
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier

RETURN TO INDEX
Royal Naval Reserve

War Medal
English actor, director, and producer.  He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century.  Olivier played a wide variety of roles on stage and screen from Greek tragedy, Shakespeare and Restoration comedy to modern American and British drama.  Olivier's AMPAS acknowledgments are considerable... fourteen Oscar nominations, with two wins (for Best Actor and Best Picture for the 1948 film Hamlet), and two honorary awards including a statuette and certificate.  He was also awarded five Emmy awards from the nine nominations he received. Additionally, he was a three-time Golden Globe and BAFTA winner.  He appeared in nearly sixty films.

Served in WW2 and rose to the rank of Lieutenant as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm.
Harry O'Neill
Harry O'Neill

RETURN TO INDEX
U.S. Marine Corps

Purple Heart
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
WW2 Victory Medal
American professional baseball player who played catcher in the Major Leagues in 1939. He would play for the Philadelphia Athletics. O'Neill was one of two Major League Baseball players to die during WW2.  The other was Elmer Gedeon.

Served in WW2 as a lieutenant with the 4th Marine Division and was killed by a sniper during the battle of Iwo Jima.
Henry ONeill
Henry O'Neill

RETURN TO INDEX
Unknown

WW1 Victory Medal
American film actor known for playing gray-haired fathers, lawyers, and similarly dignified roles during the 1930s and 1940s.  He began his acting career on the stage, after dropping out of college to join a traveling theatre company.  After serving in the military returned to the stage.  In the early 1930s he began appearing in films, including The Big Shakedown (1934) with Bette Davis, the Errol Flynn Western Santa Fe Trail (1940), the Frank Sinatra/Gene Kelly musical Anchors Aweigh (1945), The Green Years (1946), and The Reckless Moment (1949).  His last film was The Wings of Eagles (1957), starring John Wayne.  He appeared in over 70 films from 1933 to 1957, and 25 Broadway plays.

Served in WW1.
George Oppen
George Oppen

RETURN TO INDEX
U.S. Army

Purple Heart
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
WW2 Victory Medal
American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets.  He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism, and later moved to Mexico to avoid the attentions of the House Un-American Activities Committee.  He returned to poetry and to the United States in 1958, and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1969. 

Served in WW2.  Saw active service on the Maginot Line and the Ardennes; he was seriously wounded south of the Battle of the Bulge.  Shortly after he was wounded, his division helped liberate the concentration camp at Landsberg am Lech.  He was awarded the Purple Heart.

Forward to P

Return to Index