ST. PETER, Minn. — Earl Meyer recalls in bright element when his platoon got here underneath heavy hearth all over the Korean War — he still has shrapnel embedded in his thigh.
But over 70 years later, the 96-year-old is still looking ahead to the U.S. Army to acknowledge his damage and to award him a Purple Heart medal, which honors provider individuals wounded or killed in battle.
Meyer has supplied the Army with paperwork to again up his statement that he used to be wounded in battle in June 1951. Doctors on the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed that his account of the shrapnel coming from a mortar assault used to be almost definitely true. But few males in his unit who would have witnessed the struggle have survived, and he thinks the medic who handled him at the battlefield used to be killed sooner than he may just report the bureaucracy.
An Army evaluate board in April issued what it known as a last rejection of Meyer’s request for a Purple Heart, bringing up inadequate documentation. His case highlights how it may be a combat for wounded veterans to get medals they’ve earned when the fog of struggle, the absence of data and the passage of time make it difficult to produce evidence.
“At first I didn’t know that I had been wounded,” Meyer wrote in a sworn remark that used to be a part of his rejected enchantment. “But as my unit advanced from where the mortar rounds were hitting, I noticed that my pants were sticking to my leg. I reached down to correct this and discovered that my hand was covered in blood.”
Meyer took the uncommon step of suing the Department of Defense and the Army in September. The Army’s Office of Public Affairs stated it does not touch upon ongoing litigation. But after The Associated Press made requests for touch upon Meyer’s case, the place of work of the Army’s best noncommissioned officer, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer, stated that it is going to take some other glance.
“The Sergeant Major of the Army’s Office is engaging with Mr. Meyer’s family and looking into the situation,” spokesperson Master Sgt. Daniel Wallace stated. “Either way, we’re proud of Mr. Meyer’s service to our country.”
Meyer said in an interview that he wouldn’t have pursued the Purple Heart because his injuries were relatively minor compared to those of many men he served with, but his three daughters persuaded him. Growing up, they knew that he had been injured in the war, but like many veterans, he never talked much about it. It’s only been in the past decade or so that he’s opened up to them, which led them to urge his pursuit of a Purple Heart.
“I think it will provide closure for him. I really do,” said his daughter, Sandy Baker, of New Buffalo, Michigan.
Tony Cross, a disability claims and appeals specialist with the American Legion, the country’s largest veterans’ service organization, said the Legion doesn’t commonly see cases like Meyer’s of medals denied, though it did see one earlier this year. The process is challenging because each military branch has its own approval process and it gets more challenging after a veteran leaves the military, he said.
Meyer’s main obstacle has been the lack of paperwork. He told the AP the medic who bandaged his leg told him he would file the forms to show he was wounded in combat. But he never did. Meyer thinks the medic may have been killed in action. Only a few members of his platoon made it out unharmed.
At the time, Meyer wasn’t hurt badly enough to leave the battlefield. But Army medical records show he injured his back a few days later when he fell down a hill while carrying a machine gun, and then aggravated it again days later while lifting ammunition. He was evacuated to a MASH unit, then a hospital ship. The records show his treatment included a tetanus shot, apparently for the shrapnel injury.
“I still had the hole in my pants and the blood on it,” he said about the time he was hospitalized for his back. He said he still had the patch on his leg. “I should have told them at that time.”
But he wasn’t considering then about collecting bureaucracy for a long term medal. His thoughts used to be on survival.
“I was just glad to get out of there,” he said.
Accidental back injuries generally don’t qualify a service member for a Purple Heart, but wounds from enemy shrapnel can.
Meyer finished out his tour guarding prisoners of war. He was honorably discharged in 1952. His decorations included the Combat Infantryman Badge, which is reserved for those who actively participate in ground combat under enemy fire. He also received the Congressional Gold Medal for his service in the Merchant Marine in World War II.
He still has coffee with fellow veterans a couple mornings a week at the St. Peter American Legion post. He said his leg isn’t acutely sore, but it still aches. VA doctors told him they didn’t want to risk surgery to remove the shrapnel because it was too close to his sciatic nerve.
In 2005, doctors at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis agreed that his leg injury probably happened in combat. “The scar in the left thigh is at least as likely as not (50/50 probability) caused by or a result of a combat fragment wound,” they wrote in one report. “Reasonable doubt has been resolved in your favor,” they wrote in another.
Meyer first applied for a Purple Heart in 2020. The Army denied him, saying he needed more documentation.
So U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar ‘s staff then helped him get documents from the National Archives and made numerous follow-up inquiries. But even with the additional evidence, the Army Board for Correction of Military Records turned him down. Klobuchar said this week that she’s not giving up.
“Earl Meyer put his life on the line in defense of our freedoms, and we will continue to do all we can to further the work to rightfully honor his service,” the Minnesota Democrat said in a statement.
In its most recent rejection letter, the board said he must have “substantiating proof to test that he used to be injured, the wound used to be the results of adverse motion, the wound should have required remedy by way of scientific workforce and the scientific remedy should were made a question of professional document.”
The board conceded that “some evidence available for review indicates a possible injury,” however that “based on the preponderance of the evidence available for review, the Board determined the evidence presented insufficient to warrant a recommendation for relief.”
“Under wartime conditions, wounds requiring medical treatment by a medical officer will not always receive such treatment, and, even if a Soldier requiring such treatment receives it, there will be cases where the treatment is not made a matter of official record,” the board said in that case. “In such cases, other sources, including credible statements from colleagues, may be useful in establishing the circumstances in which a Soldier was wounded.”
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Karnowski reported from Minneapolis; Perez Winder reported from New Buffalo, Michigan.
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