CAMP SCHWAB, Okinawa — About 10 million men were drafted during World War II.

Pfc. Albert E. Schwab wasn’t one of them. He choose to join the Marine Corps and serve his country, said his nephew Jim Carlson during a visit to Camp Schwab on Sunday.

Under the draft rules of the time, he could have received a deferment because he had a child, Carlson explained.

Instead, "he chose to leave his family to come and serve," said Janie Brady, Schwab’s niece.

So, on May 12, 1944, Schwab left his wife and 2-year-old son in Oklahoma after joining the Marine Corps.

By April 1, 1945, the former oil worker was a flame-thrower operator landing on the shores of Okinawa with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, according to the U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division Web site.

On May 7, his company was pinned down by Japanese troops. Ignoring enemy fire, Schwab ended the standoff by climbing a ridge and attacking the machine gun position with his flame thrower, according to the Web site.

The rest of his company was then able to advance to the top of the ridge. But then a second machine gun began firing on the company, according the Schwab’s Medal of Honor citation.

Despite diminishing fuel for his flame thrower, Schwab, 24, continued with his one-man assault on the second gun, according to his citation. He was able to destroy the gun before a final burst of gun fire left him fatally wounded.

His citation credits that Schwab’s single-handed destruction of the two gun positions with allowing his company to continue its advancement.

Schwab died days before he would have completed a year’s service in the Corps.

Little more than a year later, on Memorial Day 1946, his Medal of Honor was presented to his then 3-year-old son Steven Albert Schwab in Tulsa, Okla.

Camp Schwab was named in honor of Schwab in October 1959.

The Medal of Honor presented to the Schwab family is now on permanent loan to the Tulsa Historical Society.