Elizabeth Davis
Special to Boonville Daily News
George Phillips was born July 14, 1926, in Rich Hill. He lived with an uncle and worked on the railroad before enlisting in the United States Marine Corps on April 25, 1944, at the age of seventeen. America already had been at war for two-and-a-half years.
At Iwo Jima, on the night of March 14, 1945, Pvt. Phillips was on guard duty while the rest of his unit was resting. When an enemy soldier tossed a hand grenade in their midst, Phillips sacrificed his life by throwing himself on the grenade to save his fellow Marines. He was eighteen.