The State - News from Aug. 16, 1987

Kirk S. Dunwoody finally got his Purple Heart--almost 46 years late. Dunwoody, a retired naval officer who lives in Sunnyvale, was wounded while serving as an aviation machinist’s mate when Japanese planes swarmed over the Naval Air Station at Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, on Dec. 7, 1941. He received a dozen other military medals in his 22-year military career, but because of the confusion after the initial raid, the Purple Heart award was never officially recorded. His son, Marine Cpl. Kirk A. Dunwoody, however, began lobbying for the medal a year ago--and his father finally received the decoration during an evening parade at the Marine Barracks in Bangor, Wash., where Cpl. Dunwoody is stationed.