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1 Comment [ View ]Never forgotten / Vets get the medals they earned many years ago
BRIGHAM CITY -- Sondra Kozak Rollins' dad suffered all his life from wounds he received in World War II, but he never got the medals those wounds should have won him.
Nick Kozak's medals mean a lot to the family, Rollins said, because they represent what he did: The World War II Victory medal, the Combat Action ribbon, a Presidential Unit Citation and the Navy Occupation Service medal with Asian clasp.
Kozak was on the USS Salamaua, an escort carrier, when it took a direct hit from a Japanese kamikaze plane in 1945.
"He suffered severe injuries, and he had to learn to walk again," Rollins said. Kozak, his back broken, got shipped out for medical care, so he missed the award ceremonies and normal distribution of medals that should have taken place at the end of his service.
In the following years, as a house painter and newspaper reporter in Box Elder County, Kozak was like most vets. He put the war behind him. When he died in 1988, his medals, except for a Purple Heart given him in the hospital, still hadn't been awarded.
The oversight was finally cured Sunday evening in a special Veterans Day Fireside held in the Brigham City Tabernacle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In addition to Kozak's widow and children finally getting his medals, another dozen World War II veterans got a variety of awards, and eight Korean War veterans and one Vietnam War veteran were given medals.
Norm Nelson is VFW chaplain for the state of Utah and holds a variety of posts in veterans organizations. But, he said, his work to restore medals to veterans is mostly just "as a friend, somebody who knows they've got a story to be told. I'm always looking for something to get them recognized."
Nelson's work is neither a formal program nor is it sanctioned by the government. Terry Schow, executive director of the Utah Department of Veterans Affairs, said Monday his office fields a couple of inquiries a month from veterans seeking lost medals.
Nelson said he often ends up buying the medals with his own money just because they don't cost that much and the paperwork to get them issued by the government would take too long.
The process of finding vets is equally informal, he said. Often they are guys he meets in his own activities, or even just in restaurants or stores.
"I'll see a guy who has a World War II hat on and I'll say, 'Did you get your medals?' If not, I'll get to work on it."
In many cases, he said, the veterans he finds medals for didn't even care all that much after the war about getting them.
After all, they'd been away fighting for several years. Home beckoned. Medals seemed unimportant.
"When the guys got out, they had their discharge papers and they didn't want to wait around for anything else, so they just went home," he said.
Many cases are like Kozak's, in which the soldier either didn't wait around or was already gone when the medals were handed out.
Badly wounded, Kozak was shipped out for treatment and, in the hustle and bustle of keeping him alive, the Navy forgot to get him the medals.
Others are getting medals issued long after the war. Most of those getting awards Sunday night fell into that third category.
Several years ago, the Northern Mariana Islands issued a special medal for all who served in the South Pacific theater in gratitude for their liberation in the battles of Tinian, Saipan and Iwo Jima. Veterans can apply for the medal, but Nelson does it for them. Sunday night he awarded 11.
In 2000, the Republic of Korea issued a special medal for all who served in the Korean War. Nelson handed out nine of those Sunday night.
Several other veterans were getting much-delayed medals, however.
Daniel Holland, of Brigham City, served five tours on the USS Piranha, an attack submarine in the Pacific.
His wife, Maurine, said "on his last patrol run he was ill, he had hepatitis, lost 50 pounds, and of course when he got into the base he was taken off the boat and sent back to the states, and he didn't get anything."
According to her records, she said, her husband should have gotten five battle stars for five successful combat tours.
Nelson got him those five stars.
Or there's the case of Coy Ashby, of Garland, who served in Vietnam.
According to military records, Nelson said, Ashby was sent to Vietnam in 1967, where he promptly stepped on a land mine. He was shipped to the Philippines and then to the United States for treatment that managed to save his leg.
"He says all he can remember about the incident is it blew him up in the air and he came back down in a puddle of his own blood," Nelson said.
All Ashby ever got was the Purple Heart he got in the hospital.
Sunday night, he got the other decorations he should have gotten: a ribbon bar, the Vietnam service medal and the National Defense Medal.
Ashby, because he served in the most recent war, was the last veteran called down from the audience to stand in front of the older veterans. He said nothing, merely looking around, a broad smile on his face as his awards were pinned on his suit coat and the audience stood and applauded.
That recognition is the point, said Nelson, not the awards.
Over the past several years Nelson said he has returned about 45 medals, of all kinds, to veterans like Ashby and Kozak.
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