Maxwell, Robert Dale, born 26-10-1920 in Boise, Ada County, Idaho, USA, 
to John Henry Jamison (1898–1964) and his wife Jane Marie, born Maxwell Jamison Holly ( 1898–1938).Robert had two half sisters , Francis Melvin Jamison (1924–2011) and Doris Virginia Jamison Rhoades ( 1925–1989). Robert was raised by his grandparents on their farm in Quinter, Kansas. He dropped out of school in the seventh grade to help his family on their farm. During the Great Depression 
, his family traveled to Oregon to pick fruit, but ran out of money on the way back to Kansas so they settled in Colorado.
Maxwell was drafted into the United States Army 
and entered service from Larimer County, Colorado, in June 1941. Robert was offered and refused “conscientious objector” status by the army for being a Quaker. Quakers, often together with others, try to bring people together to promote reconciliation, justice and peace. In the United States and the United Kingdom they played an important role in the abolition of slavery. He received basic training at Camp Roberts, California and training in advanced infantry tactics at Camp Meade in Maryland 
.
In February 1942, Maxwell was sent overseas and landed in North Africa at Casablanca with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, 
under command of Major General John P. Lucas “Old Luke” .
The 3rd ivision (nicknamed Rock of the Marne) fought in France in World War I. In World War II, it landed with General Georg Patton’s 
task force in a contested amphibious landing on the coast of Morocco, North Africa, overwhelming Vichy French defenders in November 1942. In 1943, the division invaded Sicily in July, and invaded Italy at Salerno in September, before fighting in France and finally Germany. Medal of Honor recipient Audie Murphy, 
featured in the Hollywood movie, “To Hell and Back,” 
was a member. The division also served in the Korean War. From 1957 until 1996, the division was a major part of the United States Army’s presence in the NATO alliance in West Germany.
Robert was assigned to Headquarters Company as a battalion communications technician, a “wire man.” 
He carried a heavy roll of cable and was tasked with stringing phone lines to the command post. He began the war armed with a M1 Garand rifle, 
but was later reclassified as a non-combatant and carried only a .45 caliber pistol.
After participating in the North African Campaign with his unit, Maxwell took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily on 10-07-1943, marching to Palermo, and on to Messina. The 7th Infantry then landed at Salerno in September shortly after the Allied invasion of mainland Italy and fought northwards to an area near Monte Cassino.
The Battle of Montecassino, also sometimes called the Battle of Rome, was a series of attacks by the Allies during the Italian Campaign in which they attempted to break through the Gustav Line.The intention was to reach the trapped Allied troops from the landing at Anzio and break through to Rome. Originally, the landing at Anzio was intended to bypass the Gustav Line and avoid a costly attack on this line, but German forces closed in on the Allied invasion force. The fighting involved 105,000 Allied and 80,000 German troops. 20,000 German and 54,000 Allied troops were killed, wounded or missing.
During the early stages of the subsequent Battle of Anzio in January 1944, Private First Class Maxwell repaired damaged wire lines to maintain communication under intense artillery fire for over three hours on January 31 and was wounded in the leg. 
For his actions under fire that day, he was awarded the Silver Star .
He spent the next few months recovering at a hospital in Naples.
Maxwell rejoined his unit in time for the invasion of southern France (Operation Dragoon) in August 1944 and the following advance inland. On September 7, near Besançon in eastern France, Technician Fifth Grade (Corporal) Maxwell, while under enemy fire, risked his life in order to protect the lives of other soldiers by falling on an enemy hand grenade and absorbing the blast with his body. He survived the wounds from the grenade blast and was awarded the Medal of Honor 
on 06-04-1945. The medal was presented to him by Major General Clarence Hagbart Danielson 
(1889-1952) at the Camp Carson Convalescent Hospital in Colorado on May 12. He also received an oak leaf cluster to his Silver Star, which was awarded for an earlier action on 07-09-1944.
After the war, Maxwell enrolled in vocational school for two years in Eugene, Oregon to be an auto mechanic. After his training, he worked a two-year apprenticeship for an Oldsmobile car dealership in Redmond, Oregon. During this time, he met Beatrice, and they married on 12-08-1951 
.
He then taught auto mechanics at Bend High School in Bend, Oregon and later helped establish an auto mechanics program at Central Oregon Community College. From 1966 through 1986, Maxwell taught auto mechanics at Lane Community College in Eugene. 
He was honored in 1970 as one of 5,000 outstanding educators.
Death and burial ground of Maxwell, Robert Dale.
In 2011, at the age of 90, Robert received his high school diploma from Bend Senior High School. In 2012, Maxwell suffered a minor stroke, but recovered after only a few days with only minor loss of functionality of his right hand. He continued as the director of the non-profit Bend Heroes Foundation.
After retiring, Maxwell resided in Bend, Oregon until his death. He died in Bend on 11-05-2019, at the age of 98. At the time of his death, he was the only Medal of Honor recipient residing in Oregon.
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