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Air Force Vet To Get Missing Medals — That He Doesn't Want
Newhouse News ^ | 4/22/2008 | Grant Segall

Posted on 04/23/2008 1:26:23 PM PDT by Incorrigible

Air Force Vet To Get Missing Medals — That He Doesn't Want

By GRANT SEGALL
  Image

D. Brock Foster holds a few of his military decorations, soon to be joined by three long-overdue ones. (Photo by Tracy Boulian)

   

WESTLAKE, Ohio — Too old and frail to tame his proud daughters anymore, a gruff Air Force retiree will have to accept three overdue decorations from World War II and Vietnam.

In public, yet. From a U.S. senator. In front of a color guard, a crowd and those gloating daughters, who tracked down a missing ribbon and two missing crosses.

"Seems like a whole lot of nothing,'' says D. Brock Foster, 86, a retired major from the Special Forces.

Last summer, while packing up the folks' North Olmsted house to move them to a retirement home in Westlake, Darlene Nelson and Dee Foster found a letter from 1968 that promised their dad a Distinguished Flying Cross for "outstanding heroism and selfless devotion to duty.'' But they couldn't find the cross. 

It turned out it was never delivered, and modest dad had never tried to find it.

So, the daughters got him to sign a request form without telling him what it was for. And they contacted Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown's office for help.

They ended up getting not just the Flying Cross but two other missing decorations: a Philippine Defense Ribbon and a Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm. On April 28, at North Olmsted City Hall, Brown plans to deliver the new decorations and new copies of several old ones.

"I don't think it's necessary,'' says Foster, who earned 16 decorations overall.

"I believe in awards,'' he added, but not for "routine work.''

He thinks he was just doing his job when he helped rescue a downed pilot near the Ho Chi Min Trail in Vietnam in 1968. He says he spent an hour piloting his prop plane overhead, dodging fire, returning it and clearing the way for a helicopter to land.

What he doesn't say, but the military record shows, is that fierce artillery destroyed two other planes during the mission. Also that Foster had volunteered for Special Forces, for Vietnam, for the rescue and for other risky missions.

Foster thinks his career was more lucky than brave. His planes often were riddled, but his skin was never scratched.

"I shot a lot of ammunition. I've been shot at. But I was never shot down,'' he says.

Foster, who was born in Iowa, enlisted in World War II in 1942, at age 20 — as soon as his parents let him. He spent nearly all the next 26 years in the Air Force.

He saw combat in the Pacific, spent the Korean War stateside and returned to more fire in Vietnam. By then, comrades were calling him Grandpa.

He retired in 1968. He spent the next few decades taking care of older relatives and his wife, Marjorie. Now a great-grandpa, he needs care himself, for arthritis, high blood pressure and other ills.

"Perfect health,'' he clucks.

Bracing for the ceremony, he sighs and says with a chuckle, "I'll have to act kind of nice.''

(Grant Segall is a reporter for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. He can be contacted at gsegall(at)plaind.com.)

Not for commercial use.  For educational and discussion purposes only.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; US: Ohio
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To: Incorrigible

Let me see if I have them correctly.
Air Medal, Good Conduct Medal (Army decoration which shows the gentleman is former enlisted), Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, National Defense Medal, Korean Service Medal (?), Phillipine Liberation Medal. Did I get them right?


21 posted on 04/23/2008 4:16:34 PM PDT by ops33 (Senior Master Sergeant, USAF (Retired))
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To: ops33

I count 8 medals in the photo but only see 7 in your list. Plus I think he’s getting the 3 missing in addition to those 8 in the photo.


22 posted on 04/23/2008 5:01:53 PM PDT by Incorrigible (If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
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To: TruthShallSetYouFree
What’s the difference between D. Brock Foster and John Kerry?

Kerry spent time in the Congo......

23 posted on 04/23/2008 5:20:00 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (My company's union supported Granholm...we all lost our jobs.)
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