Some people live long, quiet lives; others burn hot and leave a crater of stories behind them. Fred B. McGee was one of the latter—a kid from Steubenville, Ohio, born on Memorial Day in 1930—who, on a single June day in Korea, turned cold steel and raw courage into a shield that let the rest of his squad walk away alive. His actions on June 16, 1952, earned him the nation’s highest award for valor — the Medal of Honor — decades later and, as with many righteous delays, long after he’d already gone home.

From Steubenville, Ohio, to Korea

McGee came into the world on May 30, 1930, in Steubenville, Ohio, the sixth of eight kids born to Spanish and Perrie McGee. There were six boys and two girls in the brood, and before Fred turned two, the family packed up and moved to Bloomingdale, Ohio. I

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