George Roger Meehan United States Army 1898 - 9 October, 1918 George Roger Meehan was born in 1898 and as a young man from Charlestown, had a bright future as a New England three mile swimming champion. After graduating from Boston College Class of 1916, Meehan enlisted in the Army. He was deployed overseas to France soon after in April of 1918 as a Second Lieutenant in the 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Brigade, but not before marrying Gertrude “Trudy” Gibson of Dorchester. On October 5, 1918, while leading his company through heavy fire near Exermont, France, Lieutenant Meehan was struck in the back by shrapnel from an artillery shell, mortally wounding him. His surgeons said that “only an athlete like him could have walked away from the spot where he was wounded”. For his extraordinary heroism, Meehan was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and is buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in Romagne, France.
