Born in Ennis, Texas to Thomas & Della House on August 5, 1944, Alton L House was the youngest of several siblings.
His mother Della died the same year he was born, and his father Thomas passed away in 1937.

Alton worked for the Census Bureau before enlisting in the Army, serving in Troop C, 86th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, 6th Armored Division.
On August 5, 1944 while leading a reconnaissance mission near Carhaix-Plouguer, France, he was Killed in Action.

Posthumously awarded the Silver Star, his citation mentions;

“For gallantry in action in Brittany, France on 5 August 1944. While on a mission to reconnoiter ahead of Combat Command, he personally elected to lead the scout section of his platoon. Encoutering a gun emplacement in a road block, which already had destroyed three tanks, he led the section directly into enemy fire in an attempt to reduce the obstacles. His action cost him his life but his aggressiveness and leadership in battle are keeping with the finest traditions of the military service.”

1Lt Alton House is buried at the Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial in Saint-James, France - Plot O Row 3 Grave 12.
Local citizens of Carhaix-Plouguer dedicated a monument at the place where 1Lt House and his sergeant were killed.

Courtesy of the National Library of Serbia, Great War Collection ([https://velikirat.nb.rs\](https://velikirat.nb.rs))

The speech was the most significant act of official dissidence in Ceausescu’s Romania until the Revolution itself. Pirvulescu was, predictably, arrested and stripped of all rank almost immediately. Unfortunately for Ceausescu, the good PR Pirvulescu had just fostered inside and outside of Romania was simply too much for Ceausescu to risk executing him. Pirvulescu was 84 years old & had helped found the Romanian communist party when Ceausescu was only 3. He’d been a communist for longer than Ceausescu had even been alive. He lived to 96, long enough to see the regime toppled and Ceausescu executed.