After working for five months as a multigraph operator for the Rench Manufacturing Company (now Racine Industries, Inc), he joined the Marine Corps Reserve on July 16, 1942.

When the enemy launched a fierce, determined counterattack against our positions and overran a neighboring artillery battalion, PFC Agerholm immediately volunteered to assist in the efforts to check the hostile attack and evacuate our wounded.

Locating and appropriating an abandoned ambulance jeep, he repeatedly made extremely perilous trips under heavy rifle and mortar fire and single-handedly loaded and evacuated approximately forty-five casualties, working tirelessly and with utter disregard for his own safety during a grueling period of more than three hours.

PFC Agerholm's brilliant initiative, great personal valor and self-sacrificing efforts in the face of almost certain death reflect the highest credit upon himself and the U.S.

The Harold C. Agerholm Memorial Gun Park near the headquarters of the 10th Marine Regiment in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina is named in his honor.