American Military History
This Soldier Was Born into a Life of Crime. Somehow, He Became a Medal of Honor Recipient.
Military.com | By Stephen Ruiz
Published June 30, 2025 at 5:00 am
Charles Barger's life began under difficult circumstances and never really got any easier.
Born into a notorious Kansas crime family, Barger was put up for adoption when his father was imprisoned for murder, then was orphaned as a boy when his adoptive parents died. He quit school after the fourth grade and tried to support himself with farm jobs for a while before registering for the draft in 1917 -- the year the United States entered World War I.
"The only constants in his life, it seemed, were hard work, poverty and loneliness," retired Air Force Master Sgt. Joseph Bowman wrote in his 2018 book, "Quietly Exploding: The Life of Medal of Honor Hero Charles Barger."
A distant nephew of Barger's father, Bowman learned about him while researching his family's genealogy. Charles' grandson, Joseph A. Barger, and Chris Kraft, the soldier's cousin, helped Bowman fill in myriad blanks, and what they discovered was incredible.
Barger's birth parents were George and Cora Staffelbach. George's mother, Nancy, ran a brothel, and along with her three sons, she often ran afoul of the law. The Staffelbachs started with petty offenses before graduating to more serious crimes, including murder. Their exact number of victims is unknown, but the Staffelbachs generally followed a familiar pattern: They would target a man visiting the brothel, rob and kill him, and dump his corpse down an abandoned mineshaft.
https://www.military.com/history/soldier-was-born-life-of-crime-somehow-he-became-medal-of-honor-recipient.html
