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OLD SOLDIERS TAKE HEART IN REMEMBERING - 8 August, 2004
By Greg Cannon
Times Herald-Record
gcannon@th-record.com
New Windsor – They leaned on canes and walkers or were otherwise slowed by age and the lingering pain of decades-old combat wounds. A handful of old men in purple hats identifying them as combat-wounded veterans came to the home of the Purple Heart yesterday to remember.
They gathered at a marker to the unknown soldiers who preceded them as Don Stillwaggon, the chaplain from the local American Legion post, said a prayer for the ones that succeeded them and the many "still suffering the pains of war in nursing homes and hospitals."
A bugler blew taps. The old soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines saluted. Some fought off tears as the women at their sides brushed theirs away.
The New Windsor Cantonment was the last encampment of the Continental Army and the first place where the modern Purple Heart was pinned on a soldier, in 1932. It was a modern incarnation of the Military Badge of Merit established by Washington while at his headquarters down the road in Newburgh. His profile remains at the center of the Purple Heart.
For John Clark of Orange Lake, 80 years old and pushing a walker, remembering and being remembered are no small things. "It feels very good," Clark said after a USO performance of World War II standards.
Clark thought the battle of St. Lo in France, where he suffered the first of two wounds, was mostly forgotten. Then in June, his two sons took him to Washington, D.C., to see the new World War II memorial. His son, Michael, is in charge of the Cantonment site.
In Washington, Clark saw the name of the battle memorialized in stone and he was heartened to know it hadn't been forgotten.
As the WWII vets listened to the pretty girls in costumes of oversized military jackets and heels sing "Boogey Woogey Bugle Boy," Frances Garcia of Newburgh was behind a table full of ribbon-shaped magnets at the back of the tent. She was volunteering for the Family Readiness program, helping raise money for a local Army unit stationed at the armory in Newburgh.
For six bucks you could get a yellow or red, white and blue "Support our Troops" magnet and contribute to purchase of personal items for soldiers in Iraq, including Sgt. Kevin Garcia, Frances' husband.
All 32 soldiers in her husband's unit are doing OK, Frances said. Her fingers were crossed as she spoke.
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