Hershel Woodrow "Woody" Williams (October 2, 1923 – June 29, 2022) was a United States Marine Corps Reserve warrant officer and United States Department of Veterans Affairs veterans service representative who received the Medal of Honor, the United States military's highest decoration for valor, for heroism above and beyond the call of duty during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. Williams was the last living Medal of Honor recipient from World War II. Early life Williams, the youngest of eleven children, was born in Quiet Dell in Marion County, West Virginia, southeast of Fairmont, on October 2, 1923, and raised on a dairy farm in the area. At birth, Williams weighed pounds and was not expected to live. His mother, Lurenna, decided to name him after the doctor who arrived at their farm several days after his birth. By the time he was 11, his father, Lloyd, had died of a heart attack and several of his siblings had died due to the Spanish flu. Williams worked a series of odd jobs in the area, including as a truck driver for W.S. Harr Construction Company of Fairmont, and as a taxi driver. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, he was working in Montana as a Civilian Conservation Corps enrollee. Military service Williams was drawn to the Marines by their dress blue uniforms he had seen several men in his community wear. He disliked the Army's brown wool uniform he considered "... the ugliest thing in town ... I decided I did not want to be in that thing. I want to be in those dress blues." Aside from the appearance of the uniform, Williams knew nothing of the Marines. Standing 5-foot-6, when Williams tried to enlist in the Marine Corps in 1942, he was told he was too short for service. After the height regulations were changed in early 1943, he successfully enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in Charleston, West Virginia, on May 26. Williams received his recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, California. Upon completion, he was sent to the Camp Elliott training center in San Diego, where he joined the tank training battalion on August 21, 1943. The following month he was transferred to the training center's infantry battalion for instruction as a demolition man and in the use of flamethrowers. The training, Williams said, was technical and focused on