Purple Heart

Robert James Miller remembers the terrible day he was riding on top of a military vehicle when a firefight erupted around him. A piece of shrapnel from an explosion dug deep into his left shoulder. "It hit me like a white-hot hammer," he recalled. At a field hospital, the doctor told him: "You got yourself a Purple Heart here. " That was Nov. 17, 1969. He did get a Purple Heart . . . 44 years later. Miller, who lives in a comfortable two-story house on a leafy street in Norwood, was awarded the medal this week in a ceremony at the Springfield office of U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan (R., Pa.)

They were the Ernest Hemingways of World War II - American ambulance drivers for a foreign army. Like Hemingway in World War I, they were wounded in Italy. Unlike Hemingway, their wounds did not merit the hospital stay that allowed Hemingway to meet a Philadelphia nurse and that inspired him later to write A Farewell to Arms. But, ambulance drivers they were. And, wounded they were. Now, their wounds have been recognized by their own government. After more than 40 years.

Michael B. Egnatz, 70, who survived a high-seas ordeal as a Marine in World War II and went on to become an insurance appraiser, died Thursday of a cerebral hemorrhage at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Seriously wounded in 1943 on Vella Lavella in the Solomon Islands, Mr. Egnatz was being evacuated when Japanese planes strafed and sank the boat he was on. After several hours adrift in the Pacific, Mr. Egnatz was rescued by the USS Sauflay. He was awarded the Purple Heart. According to Mr. Egnatz's wife, Margaret, the Sauflay was searching for survivors from several sunken vessels - including John F. Kennedy's famed boat, PT-109.

The first Purple Heart of the Persian Gulf war will be awarded to a Navy medic who was wounded Friday during an exchange of fire with Iraqi soldiers. Petty Officer Third Class Clerence D. Conner, 21, of Banning, Calif., was listed in good condition yesterday at a medical facility in the Persian Gulf after a piece of metal was removed from his right shoulder. "I'm damn proud of him," said Marine Brig. Gen. Thomas V. Draude. Conner was serving with the First Reconnaissance Battalion of the First Marine Division from Camp Pendleton when he was injured Friday, said Navy Cmdr.

Thomas F. McDonough Sr., 63, who received a Purple Heart during the Korean War, died Thursday at his home in South Philadelphia. He served in the Army from 1948 to 1953, in H Company of the Eighth Cavalry Regiment, and was wounded twice. During the war, Mr. McDonough's unit was overrun in battle and he spent three years in Camp Pyok-Dong prison camp. Guards tormented him with beatings, perhaps because of his small stature, said Jack Kilgore, a friend who knew Mr. McDonough through a veterans organization.

Irven Richard Ostrander, 91, of Rose Tree, a mechanical engineer and decorated World War II veteran, died of complications from an infection Tuesday, Nov. 6, at home. Mr. Ostrander was born in Yonkers, N.Y., the fifth of six children. In 1943, he enlisted in the Army. He was eligible for a deferment because he was helping support his widowed mother and younger brother but wanted to fight, said his daughter Mary Ellen Davin. By February 1945, he was a staff sergeant fighting with the 102d Infantry Division in Germany.

Sgt. David Smith's wife knows he is OK, but that's about all she knows about his condition. The former resident of Mantua Township in Gloucester County was injured in a harrowing, all-night firefight on the first day of Operation Anaconda, the U.S. military's attempt to oust the remaining al-Qaeda holdouts in Afghanistan. Smith, 25, was one of the first six soldiers to receive the Purple Heart since the South Asian war on terror began in October. Details of the wounds that earned him the medal - leg gashes caused by mortar fire - have been kept from Ellie Smith, the woman who married him a week and a half before he was shipped out. She first heard about his Purple Heart when a friend saw the ceremony March 8 on CNN. Like other civilians, she gets most of her information from television and other news outlets, which have been kept farther from the front lines in this war than in past conflicts.

All members of the U.S. armed services killed or wounded in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will be awarded the Purple Heart, and the Defense Department has created the Defense of Freedom Medal to be awarded to all department civilians killed or wounded. In making the announcement yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the tributes were appropriate, given the unprecedented nature of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. "They were acts of war - military strikes against the United States of America," he said.

Thomas D. Rodgers, 63, who received the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his service in Japan during World War II, died Monday at Delaware County Memorial Hospital. He was a lifelong resident of the Main Line. Mr. Rodgers enlisted in the Army after graduating from high school, and within months he was sent to Okinawa, Japan. He served in an engineering corps that plowed airfields for U.S. planes. American forces had invaded the island in April 1945. In May of that year, Mr. Rodgers heard a kamikaze plane approaching while he was on guard duty, family members said.

Frederick C. Reim Sr., who quit Northeast High School to join the Navy during World War II and later spent nearly 10 hours in the water off Guadalcanal wounded and dodging Japanese warships before being rescued by American forces, died Wednesday at the Marcella Nursing Home in Burlington Township, where he resided. He was 70. After three years as a student at Northeast High School, Mr. Reim enlisted in the Navy in December 1940. A baseball player in high school, he was 17 at the time.

Robert James Miller remembers the terrible day he was riding on top of a military vehicle when a firefight erupted around him. A piece of shrapnel from an explosion dug deep into his left shoulder. "It hit me like a white-hot hammer," he recalled. At a field hospital, the doctor told him: "You got yourself a Purple Heart here. " That was Nov. 17, 1969. He did get a Purple Heart . . . 44 years later. Miller, who lives in a comfortable two-story house on a leafy street in Norwood, was awarded the medal this week in a ceremony at the Springfield office of U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan (R., Pa.)

WASHINGTON - The military has stopped production of a new medal for remote warfare troops - drone operators and cyber warfighters - as it considers complaints from veterans and lawmakers over the award, which was ranked higher than traditional combat medals like the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered a review of the Distinguished Warfare Medal, which was to be awarded to troops who operate drones and use other technological skills to fight America's wars from afar.

BACK IN 1944, George V. Bochanski took a sad train ride through Philadelphia on his way to New York to be shipped overseas to fight in World War II. George wasn't sad about going to war. He was sad because the train rolled behind a Westinghouse plant where his then-girlfriend was working. "He said it was one of his saddest days," said his son George Jr. "He knew she was in there working, and he couldn't tell her where he was going. " It all worked out happily, however, because when George got back from the war, he married the girl, Irene M. McLaughlin, and they had 56 years of wedded bliss.

Lew confirmed for Treasury WASHINGTON - The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Jack Lew to be treasury secretary, affirming President Obama's choice of a budget expert at a time when Congress and the White House are at odds over sharp spending cuts. The vote was 71-26 to support the nomination. A total of 25 Republicans and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont voted against Lew's confirmation. All six area senators voted for Lew, except Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), who did not vote. Lew, 57, had most recently served as Obama's chief of staff.

QUITO, ECUADOR - President Rafael Correa, a dynamic but polemical leftist who has spent heavily on the poor, confidently celebrated his second re-election Sunday even before the first official results were announced. An exit poll gave the incumbent, who first took office in 2007, 58.8 percent against 23.1 percent for his closest challenger, former banker Guillermo Lasso. "This victory is yours. It belongs to our families, to our wife, to our friends, our neighbors, the entire nation," Correa told voters Sunday.

LOS ANGELES - Hyla Merin grew up without a father and for a long time never knew why. Her mother never spoke about the Army officer who died before Hyla was born. The scraps of information she gathered from other relatives were hazy: 2d Lt. Hyman Markel was a rabbi's son, brilliant at mathematics, the brave winner of a Purple Heart who died in 1945. Aside from wedding photos of Markel in uniform, Merin never glimpsed him. But on Sunday, decades after he won it, Merin received her father's Purple Heart, along with a Silver Star she never knew he was awarded and a half-dozen other medals.

Irven Richard Ostrander, 91, of Rose Tree, a mechanical engineer and decorated World War II veteran, died of complications from an infection Tuesday, Nov. 6, at home. Mr. Ostrander was born in Yonkers, N.Y., the fifth of six children. In 1943, he enlisted in the Army. He was eligible for a deferment because he was helping support his widowed mother and younger brother but wanted to fight, said his daughter Mary Ellen Davin. By February 1945, he was a staff sergeant fighting with the 102d Infantry Division in Germany.

William A. Geppert Jr., 88, of Lafayette Hill, a decorated World War II veteran and former chairman of the board of Geppert Bros., a demolition firm in Colmar, died Friday, June 29, of cancer at his daughter's home in Wyndmoor. Mr. Geppert's father, William Sr., established the demolition firm in 1925. After he died in 1953, the business was operated by Mr. Geppert and his three younger brothers. Geppert Bros.' major projects included Connie Mack Stadium, Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry, Philadelphia Naval Hospital, and the Spectrum.

SOME DREAMS just have to surrender to reality. Ronald Spencer Brisbane, an animal-lover, dreamt of being a veterinarian. But duty to his country interfered, and the dream was never realized. Instead, Ronald spent 20 years in the Army, including three combat tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, retiring as a major. He later worked for Homeland Security before he became ill. He died March 14 at the age of 48. He lived in Horsham. Ronald was born in Philadelphia and graduated from the High School for Creative and Performing Arts.