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View Full Version : Purple Heart received 21 years later



snipowsky
10-30-04, 07:31 PM
Submitted by: MCB Camp Butler
Story Identification #: 20041027201416
Story by Lance Cpl. Joel Abshier

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP HANSEN, OKINAWA, Japan (Oct. 18, 2004) -- Master Sgt. John W. Nash received the Purple Heart during a Beirut memorial ceremony at the Okinawa Staff Noncommissioned Officers’ Academy here Oct. 22 for injuries sustained 21 years ago in Beirut, Lebanon.

Brig. Gen. Christian B. Cowdrey, the commanding general of the 3rd Marine Division, presented the medal to Nash in front of more than 200 servicemembers and families.

“One night I was taking a shower in a tent that was more than a block and a half away from the (Battalion Landing Team, 1st Bn., 8th Marine Regiment) barracks,” said Nash, who’s the deputy director of the SNCOA. “(Before I) finished washing the soap from my body, a 122 mm rocket impacted the side of the tent.”

The pressure of the blast knocked the Pontiac, Mich., native across the tent where he lay for several minutes before Herald Woodside and Paul Segarra picked him up and took him to a corpsman, Nash explained. Woodside was a staff sergeant and Segarra was a lance corporal at the time. Nash sustained cuts and bruises on his left shoulder and leg.

The incident occurred one month prior to the infamous Beirut bombing on Oct. 23, 1983, when a suicide bomber, armed with a truck carrying 2,000 pounds of explosives, crashed through the gates and entered the lobby of the Marine barracks. The explosion took the lives of 241 Marines, sailors and soldiers and wounded more than 100 others with the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit.

Nash was on the first floor and was fortunate that he did not sustain serious injuries.

“We went there as peacekeepers and came back as victims, ” said Nash, who was a communications specialist at the time. “It was the first real start of the global war on terrorism.”

Nash, a father of four, went to the Beirut Memorial at Jacksonville, N.C., Oct. 23, 2003, for a 20th anniversary memorial service of the attack. There, he talked with Woodside and Segarra, the two Marines who helped him when he was injured in Beirut.

“I was wearing my (uniform), and they noticed I was not wearing a Purple Heart,” Nash said. “They asked why I wasn’t wearing it. I simply told them I never received the Purple Heart Medal.”

Nash explained that he had no written documentation to prove enemy forces attacked him.

To ensure Nash received the medal that should have been awarded to him nearly 20 years ago, Woodside, Segarra and Nash’s commanding officer in Beirut, retired Col. Doug Ridrah, wrote statements about his injuries and sent them to Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington.

“He never talked about his injuries,” said Gunnery Sgt. Chet H. Houston, chief instructor for the SNCOA Advanced Course. “He said that his mission was helping the Marines who were less fortunate than him during the attack. It’s a shame that (Nash) had to wait this long to get something that he deserved years ago.”

Although Nash remains humble about receiving the award, Gunnery Sgt. Jerry L. Bates, chief faculty advisor for the SNCOA Sergeants’ Course, believes Nash deserved the medal.

“Master Sgt. Nash is one Marine who can remain sharp and focused even during complete chaos,” Bates said. “I hope that the medal on his chest puts ease into his soul.”

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/ae82f18a8e1b160b852568ba007e7e5e/f721d1b204a6b8db85256f3b0003bbee/$FILE/Release0514-2004-05low.jpg

greensideout
10-30-04, 07:55 PM
Cuts and bruises?

I do not wish to deminish what this Marine has recieved but in 21 years the requirements may have, (I don't know) changed some?

Cuts and bruises---I'm sure that most all Marines in Iraq in combat have received many. But not many will receive the Purple Heart.

I guess this is more of a question then comment.

Who deserves the Purple Heart? What "injuries" merit the award?

ivalis
10-30-04, 08:02 PM
recognition delayed is recognition denied.

greensideout
10-30-04, 09:27 PM
Originally posted by ivalis
recognition delayed is recognition denied.

That is a really interesting comment and it really digs deep!

How many times have you read a Marine's request about the awards earned by the unit that they served with? The Medals and ribbons that they could have worn on active duty but were never given, never even known about at that time.

It was six years before I received the addtional medals, ribbons and unit citations.

Does it matter? Not much later, but it would have meant a lot then!