Oldest living Medal of Honor recipient, Bob Maxwell, turns 97

Bob Maxwell has made another trip around the sun. And whether you believe it’s the years in your life or the life in your years that counts, he still likely has you beat.

The World War II veteran celebrated his 97th birthday on Thursday, and the main decoration in the room was not balloons or streamers.

“He’s a hero,” Jeff Briggs said. “(He’s the) oldest living recipient of the Medal of Honor.”

Maxwell was recognized for his heroism in 1945, after he jumped on an enemy hand grenade, absorbing the blast and shielding three fellow soldiers from harm. It was a split-second decision he never had to make, but did.

“When his draft number came up and the Army said, ‘Well you’re a Quaker. You can be a conscientious objector,’ and he said , ‘No, give me a rifle. It would be an honor and privilege to fight for my country,'” said Dick Tobiason, a stalwart veterans’ activist and the chairman of the Bend Heroes Foundation.

Even after receiving the nation’s highest military decoration, Maxwell is most proud of what it’s what he’s done to honor others.

“I think it might be the memorial down on the river,” Maxwell said of the Bend Heroes Memorial, at Brooks Park.

He’s the director of the Bend Heroes Foundation, which honors veterans through 36 different projects.

“People know him mostly from the Medal of Honor, but they don’t know that he was a 32-year educator in Oregon, starting right here in Bend High School,” teaching auto tech, Tobiason said.

Maxwell finally received his diploma from the school in 2011, many years after he left school in the seventh grade to work on the family farm.

Even on his birthday, Maxwell wasn’t just sitting around, drawing accolades. Earlier Thursday, he attended a ceremony west of Bend along Highway 20, where the first signs were erected for the Medal of Honor Memorial Highway, the latest of Tobiason’s and the foundation’s efforts to salute soldiers of every era on statewide highways, a project now being completed with the Highway 20 designation.

Despite being a true American hero, Maxwell has always remained humble and modest about his accolades.

“I’m just a little toad in a big puddle,” he said, “but there’s a lot of people doing a lot of good things, and we try to encourage them all that we can.”