| NAME: Lawrence Balsley, Jr. (also spelled “Laurence”) |
NICKNAME: — |
SERVICE NUMBER: 570421 |
|||||
| HOME OF RECORD: Hammond, IN |
NEXT OF KIN: Father, Mr. Lawrence Balsley, Sr. |
||||||
| DATE OF BIRTH: 3/24/1927 |
SERVICE DATES: 11/16/1944 – 6/9/1947 |
DATE OF DEATH: 7/14/1994 |
|||||
| CAMPAIGN | UNIT | MOS | RATE | RESULT | |||
| None Served | B/1/24 | 745 | Private | ||||
| INDIVIDUAL DECORATIONS: —- |
LAST KNOWN RANK: Private First Class |
||||||
Lawrence Balsley was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, in March 1927. After his mother’s death in 1935, he grew up in his grandparent’s house in Janesville before moving to Hammond, Indiana. As a boy, he was active in scouting with Troop 19 out of the Lincoln School in Hammond, and graduated from George Rogers Clark High in 1944.
Balsley volunteered for the Marine Corps in late 1944, not long after his seventeenth birthday. He trained at Parris Island and Camp Lejeune in early 1945 and was sent west to join the Fleet Marine Force that spring. Balsley became a rifleman in Company B, 24th Marines, but the war ended before he saw any combat. He would eventually go overseas as an MP and served at the newly constructed Naval Operating Base on Okinawa for nearly all of 1946. He was honorably discharged as a Private First Class that winter.
Following the war, Balsley returned to Whiting, Indiana, where he met Elizabeth “Betty” Boone. They were married in 1947 and settled back in Janesville, where Balsley found work with the Bell Telephone Company.
