The cause was cancer, said a son, Mark Holmberg. A strapping 6-foot-4, Col. Holmberg signed up for the Marines at age 15, lying about his age to serve in World War II. Col. Holmberg, then a second lieutenant, engaged “in a fierce hand-to-hand battle while under an intense concentration of hostile mortar, machine-gun and small-arms fire,” the citation accompanying the medal read. Fortunately a doctor ... recognized him and took him into the surgery tent and saved his life.”After his military retirement in 1970, Col. Holmberg joined the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2014, Col. Holmberg moved to Palm City from Vienna, Va.His first wife, Mary Termohlen, died in 1986.

Source: Washington Post September 16, 2016 22:52 UTC