Ernest Russell Gargaro was born May 21, 1919 in Murray, Utah to Mike Gargaro, who operated a confectionery and grocery, and Marie Christina Russo Gargaro, a homemaker.

The father, an Italian immigrant, died when Ernest was 19.

Ernest attended West High in Salt Lake City for one semester until 1936. He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era federal jobs program. The CCC, as it was known, employed single men 18 to 25 to plant trees, build roads and trails and make other improvements to public land, forests and parks. The men lived at camps across the country and were provided a bed and three meals a day. Of their $30 monthly pay, $25 was sent to their families. He served in Co. 1968 at Pleasant Grove, Utah.

He also worked for five months as a laborer for Utah Concrete Pipe Co.

He enlisted in the Navy in April 1941 and less than eight months later was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7.