By Howard Wilkinson
Enquirer staff writer

The story of the Purple Heart is, in many ways, a Cincinnati story.

It reaches from the Revolutionary War patriot who rests beneath a 200-year-old headstone near the banks of the Ohio to a young Navy Corpsman from Delhi Township wounded in Iraq just weeks ago.

"There's a long line of us. And, sadly, there will be more to come," said Frank Bates of Fairfield Township.

 

Jim Brooks, front left, and Paul Wilke, part of a color guard with the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, present the American and Purple Heart Flags during the Purple Heart Day Ceremony Friday on Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati. (Enquirer photo/GARY LANDERS)

Nearly 60 years ago, as a 19-year-old foot soldier, Bates was among the 7,000 men of his 106th Infantry Division taken prisoner by the Nazis. On Friday, Bates came to Fountain Square for the annual ceremony honoring combat-wounded veterans of all wars. He was joined by dozens of fellow Purple Heart recipients.

Cincinnati's two chapters of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, Chapter 156 and Chapter 3620, set up booths on the square where downtown workers could look at the memorabilia of the men who wear the Purple Heart. There were medals carefully framed and displayed on velvet; yellowed and crinkly newspaper stories told of their heroism in places such as Iwo Jima, Ardennes Forest, the Chosin Reservoir.

Paul Mullenger of Northside earned his Purple Heart when he was top turret gunner in a B-17 its crew called "Ole Miss Destry." The plane was hit in a bombing mission over Frankfurt, Germany. He showed visitors his leather flight jacket and a 60-year-old black-and-white photograph of him wearing it proudly at his base in England.

"You can see that I really was young once,'' said Mullenger with a laugh.

There were Vietnam veterans, Korean veterans, World War II veterans and even one young man who just returned from Iraq - Navy Corpsman Mark Perkins of Delhi Township, who was injured last month in Fallujah when he was hit by shrapnel from a grenade.

White-haired World War II veterans, some of them leaning on canes, gathered around Perkins on the Fountain Square stage, shaking his hand and patting his back.

"We have a motto that sums it all up - 'all gave some; some gave all,'" said Howard Osterkamp of Dent, commander of Chapter 3620 and a Korean War veteran.

The 24 World War II Purple Heart recipients who were on stage to receive awards from the U.S. Postal Service, along with their comrades from America's other wars, trace their lineage to a man who was buried 200 years ago under a simple headstone at Memorial Pioneer Cemetery, just across from Lunken Airport.

Sgt. William Brown, born in Connecticut, was 16 years old when, in 1777, he enlisted in the army of patriots battling the soldiers of the British crown.

At the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, Brown was picked to lead a small band of soldiers in a night assault on a British redoubt. Brown was wounded in the successful assault.

The next year, Gen. George Washington personally presented Brown and another soldier with a newly createdBadge of Military Merit. The heart-shaped piece of purple cloth later became known as the Purple Heart.

In 1789, he brought his young family to the Ohio River settlement that is now known as the Cincinnati neighborhood of Columbia Tusculum, founded only the year before.

"He became quite an important member of the community," said Charles Edwards of Delhi Township, a member of the Sons of the American Revolution who researched Brown's life. "He helped found a school, built roads in the area and was well known to everybody."

Chapter 156 of the Military Order of the Purple Heart calls itself the Sgt. William Brown chapter.

Homer Smith of Petersburg, a Korean War veteran, and Thomas Blakely of Colerain Township, a Vietnam veteran, are both members of the Sgt. William Brown Chapter.

Blakely was a gunner on a Navy swift boat in 1968 and 1969, the same kind of combat patrol boat presidential candidate John Kerry skippered in Vietnam.

He was hit in the arm and head when the swift boat was attacked by enemy rockets and machine gun fire.

"I was 22 years old and the oldest guy on the boat. That's the way it was back then."

Smith still carries a bullet from the battle of the Chosin Reservoir in November and December 1950, when thousands of American soldiers and marines were surrounded by Chinese troops.

The young soldier of the 1st Cavalry Division was wounded when he saw the ammo bearer for a .30-caliber machine gun fall. Smith picked up the ammo and followed the machine gunner into a foxhole. Just then, a mortar round hit.

"I ended up with 28 pieces of shrapnel in me," Smith said. "As for the gunner, the biggest piece left of him was a boot and a foot.

"I gave something; he gave it all."

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com