World War II vet honored with medals 60 years later

Humphrey, 85, had enough of this waiting nonsense.

"I'm proud of them," said Humphrey, who received 10 World War II medals in August. "I was really tickled to get them. I just figured the government was really going to send them to me."

Those words have been echoed by countless World War II veterans, who as young men, snatched their discharge papers after the war in a rush to return home. Humphrey's discharge papers listed the various medals he had earned, including two citations for the Bronze Star and one for the Purple Heart.

Months passed. Then years. Still, no medals ever arrived.

"I thought about them from time to time, but it didn't consume my thoughts," Humphrey said from the comfort of his quiet Rocky home. "But I did think about them often."

Thoughts of the war often crept into his mind, although Humphrey has never been one to publicly recount those memories. He served in the U.S. Army with F Company, 307th Infantry, 2nd Battalion of the 77th Division, and earned distinction for his fighting in the Pacific.

Uncertain honors
At Okinawa, while fighting entrenched Japanese soldiers, he received shrapnel in his right leg -- a wound that earned him the Purple Heart.

Prior to that engagement, he saw 90 percent of his unit wiped out in an island battle for an airstrip. Humphrey thinks it is during this battle that he might have been recommended for the Bronze Star medals, but to this day, remains uncertain.

"We began at 8 a.m. and were supposed to be off by 4 (p.m.)," Humphrey said. "They figured we'd just make a clean sweep. It took five days.

"There weren't that many Japanese on the island, but they were just dug in and well armed. We took constant fire."

Humphrey left the war behind when he returned to Rocky to farm and raise seven children.

"I kept encouraging him to apply for those medals," said Jeannie Walker, a neighbor who has helped numerous veterans add their names to the World War II Memorial's Registry of Remembrances. "I'll do anything to help those veterans."

With Walker's encouragement, Humphrey applied for his medals with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. The process took a year.

"I'm just proud of those medals," Humphrey said.