Melvin Gainer, Jr.

Rev. Dr. Melvin Gainer, Jr. (March 2, 1920February 1, 2003) was a U.S. Army soldier who served during World War II. He is known for being a highly-decorated scout for General George S. Patton, a leader in the Baptist Church in Missouri, and a mayor of Dexter, Missouri.

Gainer joined the U.S. Army on December 7, 1940, a year to the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Before joining ACTIVE combat, he served at Iceland, England, and Ireland. According to Gainer, Patton selected him as his scout as he was an expert rifleman and an Army volunteer. Patton's scouts often had very short life expectancies and sometimes received few rations as a way to conserve government resources. Gainer served in the 2nd, 10th, and 11th infantries. He was one of the first 240 soldiers to head into enemy territory during the Battle of the Bulge and was one of only 39 of these soldiers to survive. On March 15, 1945, he was shot in the hip near the Rhine River and spent the rest of the war in England.

After the war, he worked for General Eisenhower in Versailles, cleaning his office. Gainer earned two doctorate degrees from Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri. He also worked as a self-employed jeweler for more than 40 years and in the 1960s served as the mayor of Dexter, Missouri, where he founded a Baptist church. He served on the Executive Board of the Missouri Baptist Convention and participated in revival crusades in Hawaii and Iowa. Reverend Gainer passed away at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2003.