WWII Veteran Finally Gets Purple Heart Medal
From Times Wire Reports
Nearly 56 years after World War II ended, and although his discharge papers say he was awarded the Purple Heart medal, Roe McCarthy didn’t get it until this summer.
McCarthy spent the entire war as a prisoner of the Japanese and got the medal for surviving.
“It taught me how much a man can go through and survive,” he said.
The Japanese captured McCarthy on Dec. 7, 1941, when he was 20 years old and stationed in China with 203 other Marines.
They were later shipped to Korea and then Japan, where they were slave laborers in coal mines.
McCarthy said no one told him why it took so long for him to get the medal.