Vet gets medals 40 years later

December 22, 2006
By Jonathan Lipman SUN-TIMES NEWS GROUP

It's been almost 40 years since Arthur Kimber came back from Vietnam. Much has changed. But the medals the Marine Corps veteran once was content to lose now mean more to him than he can say.

Kimber, a native of Chicago's West Pullman community, was handed a replacement for his long-lost Purple Heart by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin on Monday. Durbin also gave him four other service medals Kimber had earned but never received.

"Man, you just really don't understand," the 60-year-old Kimber said, shaking his head as he clutched the polished wooden case that neatly displayed all of the service medals. "You'd have to know what this is to understand how it feels."

Kimber enlisted in the Marines in 1965 at age 18, shortly after graduating from Dunbar Vocational High School.

He'd long planned on joining the Army's Green Berets after seeing the John Wayne movie of the same name, but he chose the Marines after learning more about the Corps -- and its famed attire.

"I liked the uniforms," the retired Chicago Park District supervisor said with a laugh. "Dress blues."

He was a Marine's Marine, serving in the combat infantry all over Vietnam. He earned the Purple Heart after getting shot in the leg during an ambush.

"You know how you're moving around and they just get you caught in one of those triangles," he said, describing the attack. "You look up and they pop up, like popcorn. They were all over the place."

The leg still pains him sometimes, but at the time he was sent back into the field without a trip home. A general in Vietnam handed him a Purple Heart. But on the chaotic trip home, Kimber lost the medal. His discharge papers also told him he'd earned several other medals, including a unit citation ribbon and a good conduct medal.

But he never got them.

Back then, he didn't really mind.

"At the time, veterans weren't really recognized as doing a service for their country," Kimber said.

Ellie