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...
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.
~ God bless America's best, in uniform. ~
God bless America.
