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Creswell Garlington Jr. graduated Saint Paul's High School in 1940 where he played football and rowed on the third Halcyon crew. He attended the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, where he was selected for the business administration course. During his three years there, he took an active part in intramural sports, in spite of his small size and maintained a high standing in his studies. After he enlisted, he was sent to Officers' Training School at Fort Benning, from which he was graduated first in his class and was commissioned Second Lieutenant on 2 May 1944. He was sent overseas in September 1944.

On the morning of 1 December 1944, German SS units counter attacked on the positions of the regiment. Lt Garlington went back to check up on a group of four men who had been left to protect his rear under heavy artillery fire. He returned to his platoon command post and the artillery fire increased in intensity. Again he returned to the four man and ordered them back to a safer position. In getting back, one of the four men was wounded. Lt Garlington picked up the wounded man and took him to his own foxhole. While getting the other three men into position, Lt Garlington received a penetrating wound in the right ankle. He refused to be evacuated. When the ambulance arrived, he asked them to evacuate the enlisted men first and refused to be evacuated until ordered to do so. Although in great pain himself, he sang a song to try to cheer up the other wounded men. Two days later, on 3 December 1944, Garlington died in an evacuation hospital, during a blood transfusion. All who knew him praised him for his courage and for the confidence which he inspired in his men.

For this action he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously. The citation cited: For extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy, as a platoon leader, Company 'I', 335th Infantry Regiment, from 29 November 1944, to 1 December 1944. Second Lieutenant Garlington's platoon was temporarily stopped during an attack by the fire of four enemy machine guns approximately three hundred yards away. He crawled forward and with hand grenades eliminated two of the positions, while a member of his platoon eliminated the other two. Later the same day, he and one of his men broke up enemy patrols which tried to infiltrate through their lines. On 30 November 1944, during an enemy counterattack, he and four of his men crawled to an advantageous point and killed or wounded sixty of the enemy. On 1 December 1944, Second Lieutenant Garlington carried a wounded member of his platoon through intense enemy artillery fire to a place of safety. While directing the fire of his men, an artillery shell hit approximately ten yards away. While at the aid station he insisted that others less seriously wounded be treated first and tried to show his men the position of a concealed enemy machine-gun.

At the time of his death, his twin brother, 2nd Lieutenant Henry Fitch Garlington, was a prisoner of war in Germany.