Local Heroes Travel Bug Hotel Traditional Cache

On 8 October 1918, near St. Etienne France, his company was pinned down, having suffered severe casualties during an advance under machine gun fire. Cpl. Sampler detected the position of the enemy machine guns on an elevation. Armed with German hand grenades which he had picked up, he left the line and rushed forward in the face of heavy fire until he was near the hostile nest, where he grenaded the position. His third grenade landed among the enemy, killing 2, silencing the machine guns, and causing the surrender of 28 Germans, whom he sent to the rear as prisoners. As a result of his actions, the company was immediately enabled to resume the advance. He lived to be 84 years old. His grave in Fort Myers Florida is a Waymark .

Edward Clyde “Ted” Benfold was 18 years old when he became a United States Navy sailor, serving with the 1st Marine Division, as a Hospital Corpsman Third Class.

On September 5, 1952, in Korea, his company was subjected to heavy artillery and mortar barrages, followed by a determined assault during the hours of darkness by an enemy force estimated at battalion strength. Benfold resolutely moved from position to position in the face of intense hostile fire, treating the wounded and lending words of encouragement. Leaving the protection of his sheltered position to treat the wounded when the platoon area in which he was working was attacked from both the front and the rear, he moved forward to an exposed ridge line where he observed two Marines in a large crater. As he approached the two men to determine their condition, an enemy soldier threw two grenades into the crater while two other enemies charged the position. Picking up a grenade in each hand, Benfold leaped out of the crater and hurled himself against the onrushing hostile soldiers, pushing the grenades against their chests and killing both the attackers. Mortally wounded during this heroic act, Benfold, by his great personal valor and resolute spirit of self-sacrifice in the face of almost certain death, was directly responsible for saving the lives of his two comrades. He was 21 years old.

Nelson V. Brittin was a Sergeant First Class in the Army, Company I, 19th Infantry Regiment during the Korean War. He is the only one of the three who was born in Audubon.

In the vicinity of Yonggong-ni, Korea, on March 7, 1951, he volunteered to lead his squad up a hill, with meager cover against murderous fire from the enemy. He ordered his squad to give him support and, in the face of withering fire and bursting shells, he tossed a grenade at the nearest enemy position. On returning to his squad, he was knocked down and wounded by an enemy grenade. Refusing medical attention, he replenished his supply of grenades and returned, hurling grenades into hostile positions and shooting the enemy as they fled. When his weapon jammed, he leaped without hesitation into a foxhole and killed the occupants with his bayonet and the butt of his rifle. He continued to wipe out foxholes and, noting that his squad had been pinned down, he rushed to the rear of a machine gun position, threw a grenade into the nest, and ran around to its front, where he killed all 3 occupants with his rifle. Less than 100 yards up the hill, his squad again came under vicious fire from another camouflaged, sandbagged, machine gun nest well-flanked by supporting riflemen. Sfc. Brittin again charged this new position in an aggressive endeavor to silence this remaining obstacle and ran direct into a burst of automatic fire which killed him instantly. In his sustained and driving action, he had killed 20 enemy soldiers and destroyed 4 automatic weapons. He was 30 years old.