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After 42 years, local veteran gets his Purple Heart
(by Joan Demirjian - January 28, 2010)
After 42 years, local veteran gets his Purple Heart
By JOAN DEMIRJIAN
Jim McEnaney, of Bainbridge, never saw the Purple Heart he was awarded back in the Vietnam War after being wounded in an air-base attack. But through efforts by family members, he was presented the medal in a special ceremony last week in the Boston offices of U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
On Jan. 31, 1968, Mr. McEnaney was at his barracks in Chu Lai. His duties included monitoring the radios and checking on the guards that night. "We were on a hill, overlooking the air base," he said.
"Sometime in the middle of the night, I heard a great explosion," Mr. McEnaney said. "I thought a plane had crashed. There was a second explosion, and I realized it wasn't a plane." He soon learned enemy rockets were raining down on the base.
He ran through eight barracks, waking up about 80 people in the battery, telling them up to get them into the bunkers, he said.
The men were able to take cover safely in the bunkers. However, he was without a weapon, flak jacket or helmet. He went back to his barracks, and while he was inside, it took a direct hit. He was injured by an exploding rocket.
It was the start of the Tet offensive.
So serious were his injuries, Mr. McEnaney was given last rites on the hospital ship where he was flown for surgery. From there, he was transferred to a hospital in Japan for more than a month.
Shortly afterward, his father died, and he went home to Massachusetts for 30 days. While the military wanted him to go back to Japan for medical care, his sisters, Maureen Chisholm and Barbara Houlihan, petitioned U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., to keep him in a Massachusetts hospital.
Mr. McEnaney finished his military career serving in Fort Devans, Mass., near his home in Chelmsford.
While his discharge papers make note of the Purple Heart Medal, he never saw it. Looking back, he believes the medal was pinned to his bed sheets in the hospital and eventually got lost.
His sisters had tried to have the medal replaced after he returned home, without success. He had served two years in the U.S. Army with eight months of that service in Vietnam.
More recently, his wife, Laramie, and her sister Amy Sancetta, a Moreland Hills resident and Associated Press photographer, took up the effort to restore the medal for him.
Ms. Sancetta contacted her friend Haraz Ghanbari, once a photojournalism major at Kent Sate University whom she had mentored. Mr. Ghanbari is now an AP photographer and an ensign in the U.S. Navy.
"He knows a lot of people in Washington, and so I wrote him about the situation," Ms. Sancetta said. "He got right on the matter."
On Christmas Day last month, the family gathered around to present Mr. McEnaney with a surprise. It was the Purple Heart Medal certificate. Included was a letter from Mr. Kerry, also a Vietnam veteran, inviting him to receive the medal at his office.
"I had no clue anything was happening," Mr. McEnaney said of the surprise. Information about Mr. McEnaney's military career was researched by Mr. Kerry's senior staff member Christopher Wyman, who oversees foreign affairs and veteran matters.
"Sen. Kerry knew more about me than I know," Mr. McEnaney said, jokingly.
His family, including his wife and twin children Ryan and Joshua, daughter Lia, grandson Joey, as well as brothers and sisters, their spouses and nieces and nephews, were invited to Mr. Kerry's office in Boston. "There were 26 of us," he said.
In the ceremony Jan. 19, Mr. Kerry, on crutches after hip surgery, pinned the medal on Mr. McEnaney's jacket lapel.
"He made a point to shake hands with everyone before the presentation," Mr. McEnaney said. "He wanted to know all their names, and he posed for photos with the group."
Ms. Sancetta said she, like the rest of the family, was impressed with Mr. Kerry's hospitality and that he was able to spend so much personal time with the family on a busy day in his schedule. "You could tell it meant a great deal to him," she said.
"He has quite a sense of humor, and he said he had never had a crowd like that in his office," Mr. McEnaney said.
"It was an extremely moving presentation," Mr. McEnaney said. Mr. Kerry then opened his entire office to the family to pose for pictures and savor the day.
But the party wasn't over. Last week, after returning to the Chagrin Valley, friends and family gathered at Gamekeepers restaurant in Chagrin Falls.
In yet another surprise for Mr. McEnaney, Mr. Ghanbari dropped in at the gathering, in full Navy dress uniform, and presented him with a letter from Mr. Kerry, who thanked him for coming to Boston.
Mr. Ghanbari also had obtained and brought with him all the other medals Mr. McEnaney had lost or had not received during his time in Vietnam. And he presented him with a flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol through arrangements by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
After making the presentations, Mr. Ghanbari recognized and paid respect to other veterans at the restaurant that night.
Now with the Purple Heart and the other medals, Mr. McEnaney said he plans to build a display for them.
"It was incredible what my wife and Amy did, along with Ensign Ghanbari and Mr. Kerry and his staff. So much planning went into it.
"It was an awesome event in my life," Mr. McEnaney said.
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