Richard Birs, 94, was ceremoniously awarded a Purple Heart by the mayor of Portage at 6:30 p.m. at the Portage City Hall. Birs received the Purple Heart Award for being under attack by the enemy while serving the US Army in World War II. Richard Birs, accompanied by eight other Army members during the invasions of the Okinawa Islands of the Japanese peninsula, were pelted by shrapnel of the Japanese on April 15, 1945.
Birs described the shrapnel as being lead that showered on him “like sleet.”
The attack left Birs’ whole left side from ankle to hip in bad condition. Finally, 68 years later, Birs received a Purple Heart for having experienced an attack from the enemy. Birs served in the Army from January of 1942 to July of 1945. He entered the Army under the United States’ first ever peacetime army draft at the age of 21.
Birs said of his duties in the Army: “Anytime I shot at the enemy, I always prayed to God first, ‘Watch over my brothers and sisters.’”
Birs left the Army with nothing but a clean uniform and a wristwatch. 68 years later, Birs received a phone call from the United States government in June of 2013 notifying him that his Purple Heart would be mailed to him by August 2013.
He jokingly believes that the only reason for the long delay was that “the government ran out of tape to put around the box it was mailed to me in.”
Birs speculates that there may have been a mix up in the past. He said, “As I was laying in the hospital bed with my injury, I was thrown a Purple Heart dated 1944. But, the year was 1945! So, I knew it wasn’t mine and I returned it.”
He also is forever grateful to the mail lady, whom he gives credit to for being “the one who gave me my Purple Heart.”
Despite the injuries he sustained and the long delay in receiving the Purple Heart Award, at 94 years, (and four months, as Birs emphasized), he still has a sense of humor.
The City recognized Birs’ award ceremoniously because Ted Uzelic, a local police commissioner and Purple Heart owner himself, was concerned that Birs deserved more recognition for receiving the award than simply receiving it in the mail. Therefore, on a clear and cool Tuesday evening at the City Hall, Birs was awarded his Purple Heart. To the event, he wore his Purple Heart, the Bronze Star Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and Bronze Star, and the World War II Victory Medal.
Of his awards, Birs humbly said, “I would never had aspired to receive any awards, but am very happy the mail lady delivered them to me.”
Editor's note: A special thanks to Nancy Richter from Advanced Digital Photography for sending in some more photos from the ceremony (the final eight below).
