Veteran's medals replaced at ceremony

Antipodean Andy · Jul 22, 2008

Kansan's long-lost war medals are replaced | Kansas.com

Charles "Earl" Kirkland tried to quiet the applause during a ceremony to honor him at the VA Medical Center on Monday. Kirkland, 83, didn't think he deserved all the fuss, but the U.S. senator who pinned the Purple Heart and Bronze Star medals on Kirkland's chest did.

"What a different world it would have been if Americans like Mr. Kirkland wouldn't have stood up and fought like they did," Sen. Sam Brownback said, praising the "amazing sacrifice" of World War II veterans.

"How typical it is of his generation to get those battle wounds and just go back in," Brownback added.

That's what Kirkland did after he earned his first Purple Heart, awarded to those wounded or killed in combat. He returned to the field soon after. A German tank explosion cost him both legs and left him discharged with another Purple Heart.

Kirkland said the medals were lost over time after he gave them to his mother for safekeeping 60 years ago.

Brownback, who ordered Monday's ceremony to honor Kirkland, said the Wichita man is not the only veteran who has contacted his office about receiving medals that were lost or never received.

Kirkland's veteran service representative, Jim Tull, said getting the medal reissued was a matter of filling out a form. But after a year of waiting, Tull said he called Brownback's office for help expediting the process.

Brownback, who has a nephew serving in Iraq, was visibly moved as he pinned the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for heroic service to Kirkland's shirt pocket.

The senator arrived at the ceremony from Wellington, one of about 40 stops left on his commitment to visit all 105 Kansas counties this year.

Before the ceremony, Purple Heart recipient Jim Spiess, a retired colonel who now works with veterans at the VA Center's Regional Office, said the country is losing about 1,000 World War II veterans a month to old age.

"If we can recognize them before they go to their final muster, as we call it in the service, then it's a great honor to do so," he said.

Michelle Edwards, Kansas representative of the Military Order of Purple Heart, helps veterans gain access to their benefits and awards. She said family members are often the ones who request the medals.

There have been more than 34,000 casualties in Iraq so far that would earn Purple Hearts, according to military reports.

"A lot of times it's their families that see the specialness of it more than the veteran does," Edwards said.

Tull said getting Kirkland his metals took two years because of the large number of requests to the Department of Defense.

Though Kirkland may have thought the applause was too much Monday, he accepted the recognition that comes with the medals.

"I thought I deserved them," he said.
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Pathfinder · Jul 22, 2008

I'm glad he got replacement medals; they mean something to each and every serviceman and servicewoman.

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Veteran's medals replaced at ceremony

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