Purple Heart heroes recognized for valiant service
By Steve Herring
Published in News on August 5, 2018 3:05 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Army veteran Robert L. Brown, who was honored with a Purple Heart for his service in Vietnam, passes under the sabres during the Purple Heart Banquet Walk of Honor at the Maxwell Center Friday night.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Army veteran Roy S. Robinson, who was honored with a Purple Heart for his service in Korea, passes under the sabres during the Purple Heart Banquet Walk of Honor at the Maxwell Center Friday night.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Col. Donn Yates, 4th Fighter Wing commander, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, reflected on loss and sacrifice at the banquet.
Col. Donn Yates had planned an elaborate speech full of quotes in hopes of entertaining the crowd at Friday night's Purple Heart Banquet.
"But I actually threw it in the trash as I drove off base because I had a really, really tough day today at Seymour Johnson," said Yates, the Air Force base's commander.
It was a tough day because the base had a memorial service for Staff Sgt. James T. Grotjan, a member of the 4th Civil Engineering Squadron.
Grotjan died last month at the Landsthul Regional Medical Center in Germany from injuries sustained in a non-combat related incident at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates.
Grotjan's family attended the seventh annual Purple Heart Banquet, sponsored by the Goldsboro/Wayne Purple Heart Foundation, at the Maxwell Center.
Purple Heart recipients entered the banquet hall through a Walk of Honor, where Wayne County Public Schools' ROTC cadets held their ceremonial swords to create an arch above their heads.
The ceremony also paid tribute to the deceased recipients and to Gold Star families who lost loved ones in combat.
Bill Graham, a member of the Goldsboro/Wayne Purple Heart Foundation, was also recognized for his service with a special award from the Purple Heart Foundation of North Carolina.
The banquet, which included a 5 p.m. private reception for the honorees, began at 6 p.m. with a meal and the evening's program.
Gwen Bell Price, of the Grantham community, represented her late father, Jesse Bell, who received his Purple Heart during World War II.
Price said her father never talked about his service in the war or the wound that left shrapnel in his leg.
She joked that he set off many metal detectors because of the metal in his leg.
Price said her family tried to get him to talk about his experiences, but it just brought back too many bad memories for her father.
"And he had too many nightmares, and Mama encouraged us not to because she was the one who had to live with him," she said. "If he ever did, we listened. If he didn't, we didn't ask."
Price said she is glad that the banquet is held and that she has been to four of them.
"It is a great honor," she said. "To me, it just touches my heart, and to see everybody else who has received a Purple Heart, it is just a great experience.
"It has been an honor to be involved in this. I still have my Daddy's Purple Heart on a plaque with all of his other awards and medals that he has. I cherish that. I cannot imagine what the guys went through, and the ladies."
Price said her father told the family he was glad to receive the Purple Heart, but wished that he had never gotten it.
The medal is prominently displayed in her home, she said.
The Purple Heart, established by George Washington in 1782 as the Badge of Military Merit, is awarded to those who have been wounded or killed while serving in the U.S. military.
It is estimated that more than 1.8 million Purple Hearts have been awarded, and in North Carolina, the Military Order of the Purple Heart has more than 2,000 members in 10 chapters.
Its mission is to foster an environment of goodwill and camaraderie among combat wounded veterans, promote patriotism, support necessary legislative initiatives and, most importantly, provide service to all veterans and their families.
The ceremony set the stage for Yates to talk about the memorial service for Grotjan.
A roll call is held at the end of the memorial service in which the person's name is called three times -- it is a reminder that the teammate will never be there again, Yates said.
"So today, I heard that roll call," he said. "It generated a bunch of memories for me, people that I have known who have passed, who were all Purple Heart recipients and who contributed to the defense of the nation and gave the ultimate sacrifice."
Yates said he wanted to talk about some of those folks who were important to him -- teammates who never came home, teammates who teach important lessons even when they are not here.
He spoke of several, including Capt. Ryan Hall who Yates called the Purple Heart recipient who touches his heart every day.
Yates said he tries to live up to the standards that Hall set even though they had only known each other for three months.
It was February 2012. Yates was commanding a joint special operations air detachment of about 300 people and about 30 aircraft.
They were performing operations in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and searching for a terrorist cell hell-bent on killing Americans at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, he said.
It was a Saturday night and Yates was at dinner when the phone rang with a report that it an aircraft might be missing.
"I remember not knowing what to think," Yates said. "I remember not knowing what to say. I remember not knowing what to do."
"Then all of a sudden, the instincts kind of took over."
Yates told those with him to check on the aircraft -- about 30 were airborne.
They went through the roll call and all of the aircraft were checking in until they got to Ratchet 33.
"No Ratchet 33. Heart sunk," he said.
Yates sent two F-15E Strike Eagles to look for the crash site. Once it was found about 30 minutes later, Yates contacted an Army friend to ask that a helicopter be sent to the site.
The next 11 hours were spent recovering the crew's remains.
Hall was a great American, just like everyone in the banquet hall, Yates said.
"He had hopes and dreams, a wife, two children," Yates said. "We would often talk and have dinner and talk about philosophy, leadership, dreams, life after the military. We got to be pretty close."
Yates had even written to Hall's family to praise his leadership and how well he was doing.
Yates said he remembers everything about that day after leaving the remains at the morgue -- the smell, the temperature and looking up and seeing the sun rise.
"And I remembering thinking at that precise moment that there are things in life that you need to stress about and that there are things that you don't and that what he taught me right there was don't sweat the small stuff," Yates said.
He also realized that he needed to get busy living because he had not lived enough, yet, because life is short.
Yates said he thinks of Hall every night and on the anniversary of his death. He said he thinks of the valuable lesson he learned from Hall.
"He made me a better a husband," Yates said. "He made me a better father. He made me a better teammate, and he made me a better American.
"For that, Ryan, up there buddy, I miss you and if you could be here today, I know you would be proud of the amazing collaboration between the local heroes and the amazing citizens that we have here in Goldsboro."
Winston Churchill said it best when he said right after the Battle of Britain in World War II: "Never has been so much owed by so many to so few," Yates said.
"I think that speaks volumes in today's climate, especially (in) society (and) how we treat sports heroes as our heroes," he said.
"But we all know that the real sacrifices that are made, the dedication and commitment are the heroes, the people who are here in this room."