Vietnam veteran accepts his Purple Heart 50 years after paperwork error delayed it
PITTSBORO, N.C. (WTVD) -- A clerical error has been corrected, and a North Carolina veteran will receive a medal he earned decades ago.
This weekend, a 78-year-old Chatham County Army veteran who earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in Vietnam is getting a pinning ceremony and full honors.
Walter Hatcher said he's grateful for the honor and hopes other Vietnam veterans will check their official Department of Defense records to make sure they are accurate.
Hatcher recalls that even as a brave 19-year-old who volunteered and then trained at Fort Bragg and Fort Jackson, it was still surreal hearing his name called to be deployed to Vietnam.
"I was just as scared as I could be," he said.
The scariest was the night of his Bronze Star, surrounded by enemy fire.
"They were all around us, up in trees and everything, we lost a lot of men that night," he said.
A mortar landed near Hatcher but didn't detonate, giving him time to crawl to safety.
"Only by the Grace of God that I'm still here, I should have been gone too," he said.
Even after that, after a tour serving in Berlin, Germany, he was called to Vietnam a second time. During that tour, he had another brush with death, this time knocking him unconscious.
"When I came to my senses, they were putting me on a helicopter," he recalled.
It left him with injuries from his Purple Heart that still linger to this day.
"I still can't get an MRI now because there's pieces of fragments around my brain," Hatcher said.
It wasn't until years later that he realized his original DOD DD-214 form, done on a typewriter, showed the Bronze Star but not his Purple Heart.
So this soldier made it his mission, making calls through the Department of Defense bureaucracy and several dead ends, until they finally looked deeper and found it.
"It took about a year, and I got a letter from the Board of Record. 'We have found your record,' he said.
Now he has a corrected DOD DD-215 amended form reflecting his full honors.
"When they got it on my record, they sent me the medal too," he said, referring to the Purple Heart.
Now his church is helping to celebrate with an official pinning ceremony this Sunday. Walter has is camos and a fresh shave.
"A couple weeks ago, I said I'm going to cut this off my face, I'm going to look halfway like a soldier again," he joked.
After another battle, 50 years later, this soldier is getting the recognition he deserves.
His advice for other veterans in the same situation: "Never give up."
The ceremony, featuring an honor guard and pinning ceremony, was held on Sunday at Mitchell Chapel AME Zion Church in Pittsboro.
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