Since it is Memorial Day, here are a few USC related stories:

Foy Draper is best known for winning a gold medal on the historic 1936 Olympics relay team and being a world-record holder in the 100-yard dash.

But he also gave his life for his country. Draper and two crew members died on Jan. 4, 1943 while he piloted an A-20 twin-engine attack bomber in The Battle of Kasserine Pass

The pass was a 2-mile-wide gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in Tunisia. This was the first campaign in which the American Army engaged the armed forces of Nazi Germany, commanded under General Erwin Rommel.

Draper was one of the 3,300 American troops killed or wounded in the battle. He is buried in the North Africa American Cemetery and Memorial in Carthage, Tunisia. The battle also is vividly mentioned in the 1970 film, “Patton.”

One other factoid: Draper was USC senior class president.

Draper, of course, is not in the USC Hall of Fame. Just another of the many oversights.

Jesse Owens, Ralph Metcalfe, Foy Draper and Frank Wycoff were members of the U.S. relay team at the 1936 Olympics. Draper and Wycoff were members of the USC track team. Metcalfe got his master’s degree at USC in 1939.

• A group of USC students joined the Army Reserve Corps on campus around the outset of World War II and six weeks later left their classes when they were called to active duty in 1942.

They called themselves “The Raiders” and among the members was USC football player Don Clark, who was 20 when he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He lost six fillings in his teeth when a German 88 mm artillery shell went off near him. Clark returned to USC and played in 1946-47, became an assistant coach for five seasons and was USC head coach from 1957-59. He also hired John McKay as an assistant (and Al Davis).

Another member was pole vaulter Vern Wolfe, who cleared an impressive 14-feet (before fiberglass poles) for the Trojans. Wolfe became a paratrooper for 3.5 years and returned to USC after the war to get his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education. He then became a high school coach and in 1963 was hired as the track coach at USC, where he won seven NCAA titles before he retired in 1984.

Other members of the Raiders included Pat Hillings, who went to the South Pacific and returned to become a U.S. congressman from 1951-59. And Russell Chesley, who became football coach at East Los Angeles College.

• Gordon Gray joined the Navy and attended USC under the V-12 program. A natural athlete, Gordon played football at USC. His football career was interrupted when he was deployed to serve on a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Pacific. After World War II ended, he resumed his football career at USC. Gray featured in three Rose Bowl games and caught touchdown passes in two games. He graduated with honors in 1948.

• Pvt. Tony Goux died at the Battle of the Bulge. He was the father of USC assistant coach Marv Goux, who was only 12 when his father died.