Ernest was born on the 1st of February 1918, in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a city in northeastern region of the state. The city was founded by Creek Indians that had left Alabama through the Trail of Tears. Ernest’s family were Creek Indians and he graduated from the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, a boarding school that educated Indian students with integrating into mainstream American life through a strict military-like structure. He then joined the Oklahoma Army National Guard in 1937 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant with the 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division. Ernest was deployed to Italy in support of World War 2, and it was his actions that he displayed while already injured that would later earn him the Medal of Honor. The citation reads:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty in action on 22 September 1943, at Oliveto, Italy. Although 2d Lt. Childers previously had just suffered a fractured instep, he, with eight enlisted men, advanced up a hill toward enemy machine-gun nests. The group advanced to a rock wall overlooking a cornfield and 2d Lt. Childers ordered a base of fire laid across the field so that he could advance. When he was fired upon by two enemy snipers from a nearby house he killed both of them. He moved behind the machine-gun nests and killed all occupants of the nearer one. He continued toward the second one and threw rocks into it. When the two occupants of the nest raised up, he shot one. The other was killed by one of the eight enlisted men. 2d Lt. Childers continued his advance toward a house farther up the hill, and singlehandedly, captured an enemy mortar observer. The exceptional leadership, initiative, calmness under fire, and conspicuous gallantry displayed by 2d Lt. Childers were an inspiration to his men.

Ernest received the Medal of Honor seven months later, on the 22nd of April 1944, from Lieutenant General Jacob Devers, in a ceremony on the battlefield in Italy. He was married to Yolanda on the 25th of September 1945, and he remained in the Army until his retirement in 1966, at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Ernest Childers, also known as Chief, died on the 17th of March 2005, at the age of 87, and he is buried with his wife in the Floral Haven Memorial Gardens in his hometown of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma: Veterans Field of Honor, F21A.