The Hearts That Bind: Medal Makers Feel Personal Tie to Soldiers' Sacrifice

Newhouse News Service ^ | Feb. 25, 2004 | DELIA M. RIOS

[SandRat]

I've excerpted this story since the web page has "Click Here to Buy This Story" on it.

[SandRat]

Keenex Alert!

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Great post, SandRat.

Blurry screen alert!.

           

Some days I don't know whether to hug you or hit you, or send you a bill for kleenex. *g*

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

The deaths that day....the wounded and dead out of Afghanistan and Iraq, are personal to the 60 workers at Graco Awards, one of only two companies with a U.S. Department of Defense contract to make Purple Hearts.

The heart-shaped medals represent a soldier whose face and name they likely will never know, but whose sacrifice they honor right down the assembly line, through 30 pairs of hands, from the first cut pieces of brass called "blanks" to the mounting of the finished medals onto gray velvet-like backings fitted into presentation boxes.

"I feel like what we're doing here, it's our heart," explains Kat Ryan, 62, who runs a hydraulic press that creates heart shapes from the blanks...

As of Feb. 24, American troops killed and wounded in action during Operation Iraqi Freedom numbered 378 and 2,703 respectively, according to the Defense Department -- each one entitled to a Purple Heart.

Margarito Espiritu, 35, who trims excess metal off the medals, can't help but wonder: "Maybe it passes through my hands."

Maybe it does.

"We want it to say to the families, `We really care and love our servicemen,"' says Janie Barrios, 56, who attaches the purple ribbon with the white borders and then boxes the medals, knowing, as she says, that "each has a personal destination."

 

 

 

Thank You, Graco Awards Inc.
~ God bless America's best, in uniform. ~
God bless America.

 

 

 

 

[MEG33]

A great story of those who make the Purple Heart and other medals.Having all the old Purple Hearts left from WW2 because we did not have to invade Japan may help those who don't approve of our A bombing Japan see the losses we expected with an invasion.

[Prodigal Son]

Good post, thanks.

[Grim]

[McGavin999]

It's why Jacque King, who handsews Medal of Honor neck drapes to strict specifications, prays for the recipient's protection as she works, hoping the award won't come posthumously -- and that the soldier, whose heroics may have earned a Purple Heart as well, survives to live a fruitful life. "I just talk to the Lord, and tell him what's on my heart," says King, whose uncle was held prisoner by the Japanese during World War II.

I think the soldiers who receive these medals would like to know this.

[SandRat]

Having all the old Purple Hearts left from WW2 because we did not have to invade Japan may help those who don't approve of our A bombing Japan see the losses we expected with an invasion.

Maybe, but probably not.

When my son was in H.S. one of the first things that they discussed in class was the dropping of the A-Bombs and was it right. Well, he listened to the class run their mouths and finally had his fill. He asked if any of them knew what Operation Olympic was, what the total US military, Japanese military, Japanese Civilian casualties were anticipated to be for just the first wave. He pointed out that after 4 long years the folks that calculated those numbers had gotten (yuck) very good at it and gave the numbers for each category. He then asked the class how many had grandfathers in the War in the Pacific Theater. It turned out to the very ones who sounded off the loudest that it was wrong. He then shocked the class by stating "Well if they hadn't dropped the Bombs you would not have been here and given your naivety it probably would have been a good thing!"

[MEG33]

Good answer.

[pfflier]

That is a GREAT point. The revisionists will find that hard to distort.

[MEG33]

They do.They say we overestimated what the losses would be in an invasion.

We wanted 0 losses in an invasion by then.The death toll with some of the island invasions awful.They are not old enough to remember the relief and joy on the grown ups faces when the war ended without an invasion...I am.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Bless your son, and you for raising him right, SandRat.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Bump ~*

[blackie]

We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists and the democrats are sad ~ very sad!

~~ Bush/Cheney 2004 ~~

[windchime]

Bump!

[MEG33]

I found it by googling!

[MEG33]

I thought you would be interested in this story that confirms the many medals made for the invasion of Japan.

[Skywarner]

Definitely! Thank you.