Veteran hurt by revocation of his Purple Heart
BY TIM POTTER
The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle
Just after U.S. forces invaded Iraq, a Marine from Atchison was on his way to a place called Nasiriyah. Hours from combat, the infantryman lay down in the desert for a nap.
In the darkness, a 70-ton Abrams tank went the wrong way and bore down on the Marine, 22-year-old Travis Eichelberger. His buddy tried to move him out of the way. Too late.
Eichelberger saw the barrel of the tank's gun as the vehicle rolled over him, crushing his pelvis, and compressing his intestines and bladder.
He went into shock. The pain was so bad, he can't describe it.
Less than two weeks later, a Marine Corps official came up to his hospital bed and pinned a Purple Heart on him. Eichelberger felt proud.
But now the Marine Corps is removing the award from his record, and he doesn't like it.
"I believe I deserve it," he said of the medal, during a telephone interview Tuesday, which was interrupted by calls from CNN and other media.
Across the country, 10 other Marines also have had their Purple Heart awards revoked, and the Marine Corps was busy Tuesday trying to answer questions about it.
Revoking Purple Hearts is very unusual, said Lt. Col. Rick Long, a Marine Corps spokesman. Records are incomplete, but it appears the last time it happened was during the Vietnam War.
Eichelberger's disappointment came about a month ago with a letter from the Marine Corps to his parents' home in Atchison, in northeast Kansas. He is staying there as he awaits a medical discharge later this month.
"The purpose of this letter is to inform you of an administrative error," the letter began. It informed him that his Purple Heart was being removed from the official military record because the accident that injured him "was not caused directly or indirectly by enemy action."
The letter thanked him for his service and acknowledged that the decision would bring disappointment. His parents were outraged.
Long said Tuesday he could not comment specifically on Eichelberger's situation. But Long said the error that led to Marines' mistakenly receiving the awards in some cases stemmed from confusion over what constitutes "hostile action."
"No Marine wants to wear a medal they don't rate," Long said. "The unfortunate thing for these Marines is they thought they rated. They were out in the communities with their medals."
He said that he realizes their embarrassment and that it is unfortunate.
Still, Long said, "it is important that the integrity of the Purple Heart is maintained not only for all those who have honorably earned it, but for the sanctity of the medal itself."
Even though the awards are being removed from the records, the Marine Corps is not asking that the medals be returned, Long said.
Eichelberger's Purple Heart sits on an entertainment center at his parents' house.
"I don't want to bad-mouth the Marine Corps in any way," Eichelberger said. "I love the Marine Corps."
If not for his injury -- from which he has mostly recovered -- he would remain in the service, he said.
What bothers him is that now that the Marine Corps is taking the honor away, he's left in an awkward position.
When the former homecoming king returned to Atchison, he received a key to the city. Townspeople lined the Missouri River bridge to welcome him. The city named a day in his honor.
"Everybody in town knows I have it," he said of the Purple Heart.
Schools, including Atchison High, invited him to speak.
"I've told all these kids... about the injury and me receiving a Purple Heart," he said. He let the students pass his medal around.
Now, with the award being revoked, he said, he feels "almost like I lied."
He's planning on taking off the special license plate on his GMC pickup that identifies him as a Purple Heart recipient. "Combat wounded," it says.
He spent almost a year recovering from his injuries. Scars remain, but his crushed pelvis has healed. The damaged internal organs have resumed normal functioning.
He realizes he's lucky.
That night in the desert, his friend, trying to save him, spun him partly out of the way of the tank. So the Abrams rolled across his waist; otherwise, it would have crushed him from head to toe.
Meanwhile, word is getting around Atchison that one of its favorite sons is losing his Purple Heart. People have been supportive.
He hasn't asked the Marine Corps to reconsider its decision. "I'm not really fighting to get it back," he said.
The thing he wants, he said, is to make sure "the same mistakes don't happen again."
― stockholm cindy's secret childhood (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 10 February 2005 00:54 (twenty-one years ago)