Wahlen honored for bravery, toughness, and love

OGDEN — He was a West Ogden farm boy who tamed a bully in the seventh grade, had his knuckles rapped for lying as a youngster and prayed for the first time on the volcanic island of Iwo Jima while saving Marines from a rain of bullets.

George E. Wahlen would be the first to tell you he didn't consider himself a Medal of Honor winner.

But as hundreds turned out Thursday at his funeral services at the Ogden Tabernacle to pay tribute to Wahlen — who had been Utah's last living Medal of Honor recipient — it was clear his humble valor evoked a brand of respect reserved only for heroes.

A flyover of two Apache helicopters.

Color Guard services carried out by three branches of the military.

Dozens of men and women in the military, retired and active, saluting to a servant of mankind, and the tears shed by family, friends and strangers.

"We know it is more than us who claim him," said son Blake G. Wahlen. "We know he has a place in so many hearts."

George E. Wahlen, 84, died June 5, after struggling with cancer, struggling with his shuffles through the halls of the Utah Legislature to lobby for veterans' nursing homes, after being married to his sweetheart Melba of 62 years, after living the life of what he says was just an "ordinary" man.

Weak, tired and sick at the end, Wahlen never abandoned his role as mentor to his children, grandchildren and great-greatchildren, said his daughter Pam Riley.

"He taught us how to live, even when he was dying," she said. He'd ask why so many people did so much for him in his last weeks, last days, and she said she told him what he had done over the years for his wife, his family, his fellow veterans and his country.

"He looked at me and asked, 'Did I really do all that?' "

Much of "all that" was asking his father to join the military, being turned down and then upping in on his own at 18 with the Navy. He wound up attached to the Marines and on Iwo Jima, where despite being wounded, he bellied up to wounded Marines and patched them up as a medic.

President Harry S. Truman would later commend the "pill pusher" when he gave the medal to Wahlen, who later went onto serve tours of duty with the Army in Korea and Vietnam.