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Athletic, witty, and hard working, Eugene “Gene” Obregon, was the kind of kid everyone liked. Born on November 12, 1930, in Los Angeles, California, he graduated from LA’s Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1948, and five months before his 18th birthday asked his father if he could join the Marines.
His father reluctantly agreed. “Gene said he owed it to our country,” his mother, Henrietta Obregon, told William Lansford in the 2001 Leatherneck Magazine article, “An American Story.”
“How could we refuse," she said.
By August 1950, the 19-year-old Marine was in Korea serving with Company G, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines.
Over the next two months of fighting in the hills, rice paddies, and streets of Korea, Obregon, a machine gun ammunition carrier, would distinguish himself as a dedicated, loyal, and courageous member of his unit.
On September 26, 1950, the young Marine went above and beyond the call of duty.
As Obregon and his company were fighting their way through Seoul's barricaded streets, sniper-filled alleys, and bombed-out buildings, a North Korean unit, undetected by the Americans, unleashed a deadly hail of small arms, machine gun, and mortar fire.
One of the first men to get hit was PFC Bert Johnson, a Grand Prairie, Texas, native and close friend of Obregon.
Lying in the street and bleeding from wounds in his head, arms, and legs, Johnson heard Obregon yell out, “Hang on, Bert, I’m coming to get you.”
With bullets flying, mortar rounds exploding, and his buddy screaming, “Stay where you are!" Obregon, armed only with his .45 pistol, jumped up, and in total disregard for his own safety, ran down the middle of the street.
Within seconds, Obregon had reached Johnson and dragged him into a nearby ditch, where he began bandaging his wounds.
What happened next shocked and amazed every Marine in the area.
As a platoon of enemy soldiers suddenly charged towards the two men, Obregon opened up on the onrushing troops, and in a desperate attempt to save his buddy, placed his body between Johnson and the hail of enemy bullets erupting all around them.
With enemy soldiers now just feet away, Obregon, totally out of ammo, reached up, pulled a grenade from his belt, and hurled it towards the enemy. The exposed Marine was instantly hit. “That’s when the machine gun got him,” a fellow platoon member recalled.
Shot twice in the face, the young PFC who had done everything he possibly could to save his friend, died instantly. Moments later, the Marines in his company wiped out the remaining North Korean attackers and rescued Johnson.
For his "courageous fighting spirit, fortitude and loyal devotion to duty” and for saving the life of PFC Johnson, Obregon was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
The devastating news of Obregon’s death reached his parents days later.
"When my dad saw it [the telegram], he passed out,” Obregon’s sister, Virginia La Carra, told the LA Times in 1994. “ He took it very, very hard.” Obregon’s father never recovered from the loss of his only son and died of a heart attack five years later. "He always told me Gene was waiting for him," his wife, Henrietta, said.
Just two days before his death, PFC Obregon, in what would be his last letter to his parents, told them that Tony Medrano, his high school friend who had enlisted with him in 1948 and was a favorite of the family, had been killed.
“I saw him die,” the grief-stricken teenager wrote. The two Marines had been inseparable during their two years together in the Marines.
Nearly a year later, on August 30, 1951, Mr. and Mrs. Pedro Obregon received their son’s posthumous MOH from Secretary of the Navy Daniel Kimball.
In a fitting and emotional tribute to the man who had saved his life, Bert Johnson, recovered from his wounds and now a SSgt., attended the ceremony.
When asked by a reporter what his buddy had said in the final moments of his life, Johnson replied, “He told me, `Bert, if we’re going down, we’ll go down fighting like Marines.’”
PFC Gene Obregon (left) and PFC Ralph Summers, with their .30cal machine gun,
overlooking the Naktong River. The photo was taken on August 19, 1950, just five weeks
before Obregon’s death. (PC: Sgt. Frank Kerr, USMC)
1948 MCRD graduation photo, with arrow pointing to Obregon (PC: Leatherneck Magazine)
Eugene Obregon’s final resting place at Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles, CA (PC: findagrave)
