Robert Bradley reported for duty with the 182nd Infantry in January 1941, at the young age of just 16 years old. On that same day, another soldier, Russell Brady, also reported for duty. 4 years later, they became brothers-in-law, when Brady married Bradley’s older sister Doris May Bradley.
Bradley served with Company G for the next year and a half, including the combat campaign on Guadalcanal. He was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for the Guadalcanal campaign. He transferred out of the company in May 1943, while stationed on Fiji, and returned to the U.S. in June. Bradley was honorably discharged with disability from Kennedy General Hospital in Memphis, TN, in November 1943. He died just 12 years later, in 1955.