“Pat” Offer was a 22-year-old Bostonian, educated at Lawrence High School and Tilton Academy. If not for the war, he would have been enjoying his first summer as a college graduate with a diploma from Northeastern University. However, Offer dropped out of college in 1942 to serve in the Navy. After completing hospital corps school and a few months at the Chelsea, Massachusetts naval hospital, he signed on with the crew of USAT Munargo and sailed from New York City to Trinidad, Brazil, and San Francisco. He even made a voyage across the Pacific, traveling as far as Noumea and back. Offer attended Field Medical School at Camp Elliott in the summer of 1943, and was posted to Charlie Company in July. “His fine qualities and good judgment won him a multitude of friends,” noted battalion surgeon Richard C. Porter, and in combat Offer “continually displayed his coolness, courage, and devotion to his duty. He disregarded his own safety when it came to treating a wounded man in the field.”[3]

These traits would cost him his life. A Japanese sniper shot Pat Offer through the neck as he was treating a wounded Marine in the field. The brave corpsman was recommended for the Silver Star Medal for his actions on 29 July; he ultimately received a posthumous Bronze Star Medal for heroic service on Saipan instead.[4]