Glen Martin Olson was born in Roosevelt County in northeastern Montana on Sept. 19, 1923. His father, Martin Olson, was a laborer for an electric company and his mother, Anna Gustafson Olson, a homemaker.

By 1930 the family, which included an older daughter and son, had moved to Arlington, Washington near Seattle. 

Glen completed 7th grade there in 1939. He left Arlington, population 1,460, in June 1941, to enlist in the Navy. He was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed that Dec. 7 in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Sources: Montana birth record; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; Census; Arlington (Washington) High School yearbook. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.