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Pfc Peter C. Grassman graduated from North Phoenix High School in 1943. He was very active in Boy Scout work, being an Eagle Scout with palms and having served three seasons on the staff of Camp Geronimo.

He enlisted in Phoenix, Arizona on 20 August 1943. He qualified for the Army Special Training Program and studied at Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh. While at Carnegie Tech, he was elected to the American Entomological Society, the youngest person ever to receive the honor. The membership was granted in recognition of an original research project on Coleoptera on ground beetles.

He then was assigned to the infantry and trained for combat intelligence.

On 4 December 1944 the Command Post of the 2nd Battalions were severed by heavy enemy artillery fire. Pfc Grassman along with another soldier, Wes Hare, had volunteered to carry messages back and forth across the bridge to his Company Command Post. During the day, the two men made eight trips across the bridge under the most severe artillery fire ever received by the Second Battalion. In the afternoon, while crossing the bridge under frightful shelling, Pfc Grassman was killed by flying fragments of artillery shell.

He was first buried at the Temporary American Military Cemetery in Limey, France.