Terrence C. Graves was born on July 6, 1945, in Corpus Christi, Texas, the first of four children of Marjorie and Leslie Graves. After his father completed military service, the family moved to Central New York, where Graves showed strong academic, athletic, and leadership abilities. In Edmeston, New York, he was an honor student, president of both the Student Council and the Honor Society, and earned varsity letters in football, basketball, baseball, and track while still a freshman. Baseball was his favorite sport, and in his senior year he posted a .676 batting average. Though invited to a Cincinnati Reds tryout camp in 1963, he chose to attend Miami University of Ohio on a Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship. While in college, he lettered three years as a second baseman, coached Groton Little Leaguers during summers, and rose to Battalion Commander in the NROTC program. After graduating in May 1967, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps and within six months was sent to South Vietnam with the 3rd Recon Battalion of the 3rd Marine Division. On February 16, 1968, as a platoon commander with the 3d Force Reconnaissance Company on a long-range reconnaissance mission in Quang Tri Province, he and his 8-man patrol first observed 7 enemy soldiers and opened fire, then came under heavy attack from a larger enemy force. After one of his men was wounded, Graves moved through fire to his radio, requested air support, and adjusted artillery and helicopter gunship fire on the enemy. He then helped attend the wounded, assaulted surviving enemy troops, and began moving his patrol to a landing zone for extraction. When the unit again came under intense fire, wounding two more marines and Graves himself, he refused medical attention, continued directing air strikes and artillery fire, led his men to a new landing site, and guided incoming aircraft while exposed to hostile fire. Realizing one wounded marine had not embarked, he ordered the aircraft to depart and went with another marine to the casualty. As enemy fire intensified, a second helicopter was hit and crashed shortly after liftoff, killing all aboard. For his conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty, Graves was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.