George Dilboy (Giorgos Dilbois) was born February 5th, 1896 in Greece. First Greek-American to be awarded the Medal of Honor. He received the award posthumously (presented to his father) in January 1919 for his actions as a private first class in Company H, 103rd Infantry, 26th Division, US Army, on July 18, 1918 near Belleau Wood, France at the Battle of Soissons during the Aisne-Marne counteroffensive of World War I. After his father emigrated to the US in 1908, he joined him two years later but returned to Greece as a young teenager in 1912 to join the Greek Army to fight against the Ottoman Turks in the 1st Balkan War and later against Bulgaria in the 2nd Balkan War. He then returned to Somerville, Massachusetts where his father lived and attended high school. In 1916 he joined the US Army and saw action in the Mexican Border War. Following his discharge, he re-joined the Army after the US entered World War I in April 1917 and was sent to France as part of the 26th "Yankee" Division. The following July found him defending the Bouresches rail station in France as part of the Battle of Soissons during which he was killed in action at the age of 22. Originally interred in the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, France, his remains were moved to his birthplace in Alatsata, Greece at the request of his father. During the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, Turkish forces captured Alatsata and ransacked the church where he was interred and desecrated his grave. When US President Warren G. Harding heard about it, he was angered and sent a naval warship to retrieve Dilboy's remains for final interment on November 12, 1923 at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia. In 1930 a monument was erected in his honor at the Somerville City Hall. In May 1942 the George Dilboy Memorial Foundation erected a memorial in his honor at the Hines Veterans Administration Hospital in Hines, Illinois. His life was fictionalized in Eddie Brady novel, "Georgie! My Georgie!" (2005). His Medal of Honor citation reads: "After his platoon had gained its objective along a railroad embankment, Pfc. Dilboy, accompanying his platoon leader to reconnoiter the ground beyond, was suddenly fired upon by an enemy machine gun from 100 yards. From a standing position on the railroad track, fully exposed to view, he opened fire at once, but failing to silence the gun, rushed forward with his bayonet fixed, through a wheat field toward the gun emplacement, falling within 25 yards of the gun with his right leg nearly severed above the knee and with several bullet holes in his body. With undaunted courage he continued to fire into the emplacement from a prone position, killing 2 of the enemy and dispersing the rest of the crew." Bio by: William Bjornstad