MILITARY : Better Late Than . . . : Man Injured in World War I Gets Purple Heart After 76 Years

The lavender words on the yellowing War Department missive are faded now, but their vague phrasing can still grip a reader. Young Army Cpl. Fred Roberts has been “wounded in action,” it reads; the severity “undetermined.” There is “no further information.”

That terse Western Union telegram was all that came to Gooding, Ida., one day in late August, 1918. Albert and Elizabeth Roberts couldn’t know their son had been shelled and attacked with mustard gas when his battalion advanced into France’s Belleau Woods days before.

And it was all that ever came from Washington about Fred’s injury in combat--until this March.

A polished Purple Heart now sits atop Roberts’ dresser under a newly minted decree, awarded to him three weeks ago in a ceremony at the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center orchestrated by “pups” one-third his age.

“I never thought about (the Purple Heart), never knew there was such a thing,” said Roberts, 99, from his daughter’s Temple City home, where he now lives. “I was wounded during a heavy bombardment. The next thing I knew, I was in a vehicle going somewhere.”

Roberts’ quiet journey to formal recognition might serve as inspiration for any of the more than 17,000 surviving U.S. World War I veterans whose meritorious service occurred in generations when Purple Hearts were not awarded.

Gen. George Washington originated the award in 1782, and the medals now bear his portrait. Three Revolutionary War soldiers received the decoration before it was retired; Congress revived it in 1932. The change was made retroactive for World War I veterans, but no machinery was set in motion to search records for men who were injured in combat, the distinction for which the medal is awarded.

Roberts had long been discharged and returned to a postal clerk’s job in Gooding. Years passed, a family was raised, other wars were fought, other soldiers were wounded. And all the while, Roberts never determined exactly how to go about pursuing his medal.

Decades clicked by as Roberts retired to a contented life of tending his garden and shooting pool, often with his best friend, Cliff Mackrill. Shortly before his death, Mackrill told his grandson, Army Maj. Jim Sauer, about Roberts’ exemplary service. And Mackrill, based at San Francisco’s Presidio, jumped into action.

“Nobody did this to be evil; it was just a mistake,” Sauer said. “And Fred was the type who wasn’t going to pursue it, either.”

Roberts’ daughter, Barbara Petitt, sent Sauer copies of the 1918 telegram and Roberts’ official discharge. Roberts had moved in with her last year, after his wife died.

“(Sauer) fired that off back East, and the Purple Heart was here in nothing flat,” she said.

The medal was pinned on Roberts at a March 12 ceremony.

“He said, ‘When you wait for something, it’s more meaningful--there’s more appreciation,’ ” Petitt said of her father. “(He’s) had a lot of chance to think about it.”

Because of Sauer’s efforts, and the notice that Roberts’ case has since received, other curious veterans have been coming forth to seek medals, said Ted Bartimus, a spokesman at Los Alamitos. But many could face formidable challenges to proving their claims because of a mid-1970s St. Louis warehouse fire that destroyed many records, Army spokeswoman Kathy Ross said.

More than 53,000 American soldiers died in World War I, and Roberts remains grateful that he lived through it.

Should war come again, he said, “People wouldn’t hesitate to take part and do whatever they could. We have the most wonderful country.”