The greatest constant in life is change. So it has been for Robert E. O’Malley and Emilio Membrila.

They are each from a different generation, so the changes they have seen in many ways differ to a great degree. On the other hand, they know firsthand of things that not even time can change. Those common and timeless elements are combat and facing death.

Membrila, a native son of Greenlee County, is a decorated U.S. Army World War II veteran. In 1944, he was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and survived the brutality of a Nazi prisoner of war camp.

Pictured, from left, are Emilio Membrila and Robert E. O’Malley. Membrila, a native son of Greenlee County, is a decorated U.S. Army World War II veteran. In 1944, Membrila was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and survived the brutality of a Nazi prisoner of war camp. O’Malley is a former U.S. Marine and is an adopted son of Greenlee County. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during the Vietnam War’s Operation Starlight in 1965. Photo by Walter Mares

O’Malley is a former U.S. Marine and is an adopted son of Greenlee County. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during the Vietnam War’s Operation Starlight in 1965. He came to know Greenlee County by visiting there with Morenci native and former comrade-in-arms Sgt. Jimmy Martinez, who served in the same unit as O’Malley during Operation Starlight.

O’Malley and Membrila understand what Americans of a new generation are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is why Membrila and O’Malley have on different occasions joined in honoring those who have served and are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two of those occasions have been on Robert E. O’Malley Day celebrated in July in Clifton, Greenlee’s county seat.

Steve Guzzo, a Vietnam veteran and president of the Mares Bluff Veterans Memorial Committee, which sponsors O’Malley Day, said that while the day honors O’Malley, the Vietnam War hero insists that the event focus on honoring today’s veterans. “That says a great deal about Sgt. O’Malley’s personal character. He is a hero in every sense of the word,” Guzzo said.

Membrila was taken prisoner during the last major German offensive of WWII. It was the winter of 1944. One can only imagine the suffering of American and other Allied troops against the bitter cold, starvation, disease and constant beatings.

Membrila has for years been highly active in the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion.

Two years ago, Membrila finally received the Purple Heart for wounds suffered during the Bulge battle. In May 2009, Membrila was awarded a high school diploma from Clifton High School, which he attended until he answered the call to arms of the world war. It was a full-fledged diploma, approved by Arizona Department of Education.

Membrila was at the Ardennes Offensive at the border between Germany and Belgium — also known as the Battle of the Bulge — on Dec. 16, 1944. He and five others were captured in the early morning of Dec. 17.

“We had run out of ammo and could no longer resist,” Membrila recalled.

After Membrila and the others were captured, they were forced to march to boxcars that would take them to Stalag IIIA in Luckenwalde, Germany.

A German soldier decided Membrila was not moving fast enough and beat him with the butt of his rifle, Oller said. Membrila fell to the ground and could not get up. If another American soldier had not helped him, he would have lain in the snow and frozen to death.

After nearly five long months in the prison camp, the war ended after Hitler committed suicide May 30, 1945. Nazi Germany officially surrendered May 8 — known as VE Day.

O’Malley

O’Malley appears uncomfortable when he is referred to as a hero. However, that is what he called Membrila. “He is my hero, and I greatly admire Emilio,” O’Malley said.

O’Malley was a squad leader in Company I, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, 3rd Marine Division when his squad encountered the enemy near An CuÕong 2, South Vietnam, on Aug. 18, 1965.

At dawn on Aug. 18, O’Malley’s 3rd Battalion made an amphibious landing near the village of An CuÕong 2. Almost immediately, more than 1,200 Viet Cong hidden in the ridges began to mortar the Marines, knocking out three tanks that were part of the operation. When O’Malley saw that the enemy was firing from a trench line beyond an open rice paddy, he charged toward it.

Leaping into the trench line, he killed eight soldiers with his rifle and hand grenades, then ran back to his squad. After aiding in the evacuation of several wounded Marines, he returned to the area of heaviest fighting and helped repel another assault.

O’Malley was finally ordered to evacuate his battered squad. As he led the way to a helicopter landing zone, he was hit by mortar shrapnel in his legs, arm, and lung and began coughing up blood. Despite his wounds, he moved to an exposed position so he could lay down suppressive fire as his men boarded a chopper. Only after they were all safely aboard did he allow himself to be removed from the battlefield.

It took more than four months for the shrapnel in his lungs to stop shifting so that O’Malley could be operated on. After undergoing surgery in Japan, he was sent back to Camp Pendleton and finished out his tour there, leaving the service in April 1966.

Late that fall, he was informed that he was to receive the Medal of Honor. Asked his reaction upon learning he would be receiving the nation’s highest honor, O’Malley quipped, “I thought, hey, that’s a good way to get out of inspection.”

He was flown on Air Force One to Austin, Texas, where President Lyndon B. Johnson was meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president presented the medal to O’Malley on Dec. 6, 1966.

O’Malley was awarded the Medal of Honor for “gallantry and intrepidity in action against the communist (Viet Cong) forces at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”