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MYSTERIOUS GRAVE MARKER DRAWS VETERANS BACK
INTO
BATTLE -- Did John Edward George Jr.
really get a Medal of Honor?
This a a very interesting and bizarre
story.
Be sure to read the Army's explanation at
the end of the story.
Story here...
http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/
apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061024/NEWS/61023024
Story below:
---------------
Mysterious marker draws veterans back into battle
A brother honored as a hero
By Mark Schreiner
Raleigh Bureau Chief
mark.schreiner@starnewsonline.com
Al Corbett doesn’t remember anyone calling, but they must have. In 1988,
his family owned Airlie Gardens, the last unspoiled bit of Pembroke
Jones’ once vast, seaside estate near Wrightsville Beach. Near its
center was a white, clapboard chapel and next to it, a graveyard
enclosed in brick walls and an iron fence.
In those years, to be buried in the old cemetery at Mount Lebanon
Chapel, you had to call the Corbett family and make your case.
Most had forgotten that the chapel and cemetery had long ago been deeded
to St. James Parish, the Episcopal church at Front and Third streets in
Wilmington. That fact wouldn’t be fully remembered until the 1990s, when
the Corbetts announced they were thinking of dividing up some of the
gardens for development and the church reasserted itself.
But even now, no one remembers the call in 1988 about John Edward George
Jr. “It’s not unthinkable that someone would call and have a proper
reason to bury somebody out there,” Al Corbett said. “But they must have
made a good case. We probably went out and left the gate unlocked for
them.”
Robert Franklin George vaguely remembers the day his former Army pilot
brother was buried.
“There was a service in the chapel,” he said. “And full military honors
at the gravesite.”
Even then, he said, “I don’t know anything about a Medal of Honor.”
He remembers little else. He said he would ask his sister Diane Owens to
refresh his memory now but they haven’t spoken in 15 years.
It was Owens who put the service together. She had his body brought back
from California, where he had died from heart disease.
In a recent interview, she said he would have wanted to be buried near
his mother’s parents. They were buried there because of the family’s
long history on Masonboro Sound.
A death notice provided to the Morning Star – the newspaper now called
the Star-News – began with “A war hero and veteran has died …” and ended
with a signoff: “A Diane Owens funeral.”
The notice was filled with the details of George’s long service in the
Army. Some of the details can be verified, others cannot.
He won a Combat Infantryman Badge and earned a Bronze Star, a sign of
battlefield valor.
But, while the obituary claimed he received two Purple Heart medals,
there is no mention of them on his Army discharge paper.
The obituary claimed he had received the nation’s highest military
award, even though it was misspelled “Metal of Honor.”
According to the Army, there is no record of him ever having received
that exceptional award.
What is known is that Owens wanted her beloved brother’s name to be
associated with heroism.
“He’s a man who served his time; now let him rest,” she said recently,
before hanging up the phone and repeating, “All that may help you, but
it won’t help our family.”
Owens said she is sure George received the Medal of Honor.
The Army is sure he did not. They have no record of awarding George a
Medal of Honor.
Owens said she has his medal and all the related papers and citations.
But they won’t be easy to get to, she said.
She said she keeps the nation’s highest decoration for battlefield valor
in storage. She moved earlier in the year, and a lot of family things
were put away, she said.
But she cut off the interview without accepting an offer to help dig it
out.
*****
Owens didn’t say so, but it is possible that it was George himself who
told her he had earned the medal. It is possible that he had one.
About 10 years ago, federal officials discovered that the Long Island,
N.Y., company that manufactured the medals for the government had struck
hundreds of unauthorized versions that were sold to people across the
country.
But what about the headstone that says “Medal of Honor”?
No one admits to making it or having it made.
The words “Medal of Honor” were carved into the headstone by the
military, Owens said.
“They came down and delivered it,” she said.
The National Cemetery Administration, a unit of the U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs, which issues all military headstones, says that is not
possible.
An administration spokesman, Timothy T. Daly, filled a request to see
the public portions of George’s veterans record on file with the VA.
George was eligible for a government-provided headstone because of the
honorable discharge he received when he left the warrant officer ranks
to become a commissioned officer, the record shows.
That may account for one of the two headstones on the grave.
But, Daly said, the government could not have provided the stone that
mentions the Medal of Honor.
“He’s not in any of our books,” he said.
*****
The opening of Airlie led people to the grave of John Edward George.
In 1999, Airlie Gardens became a public park. Stories of the Medal of
Honor headstone have circulated in Wilmington ever since.
St. James Parish owns the chapel and graveyard. The church controls
about six acres in the midst of the garden. Gates and signs identify the
church property, but the chapel and graveyard are inextricably linked to
Airlie Gardens and its history.
The chapel and cemetery are marked on the maps handed out at Airlie
Gardens’ gate, and visitors are encouraged to seek them out. On summer
Sundays, when parish members worship at the chapel, the gates are open
for much of the day, and it is not unusual to see garden visitors
snapping photos of the chapel and quietly looking at the graveyard.
Don Blake saw the headstone a few years ago while on a visit to the
park.
“I’m walking back there and I see this man’s gravestone and it says
Medal of Honor,” said Blake, chairman of the New Hanover County health
board and a Vietnam veteran. “I thought, golly, how could I have missed
this?”
*****
Wilmington has a special relationship with the Medal of Honor. Among its
sons, it counts four who have received it. The observance of the 50th
anniversary of the victory in World War II a decade ago reawakened
memories of these heroes.
Navy Capt. Edwin Alexander Anderson Jr. received the medal for leading a
raiding party during the Veracruz incident in Mexico in 1914.
In France in 1944, Army 1st Lt. Charles Murray, a New Hanover High
School graduate, single-handedly attacked an overwhelming enemy force,
saving the lives of his comrades.
Navy Pharmacist’s Mate 2nd Class William D. Halyburton Jr., also a
Hanover graduate, used his body to shield a fallen Marine during the
Battle of Okinawa in 1945 at the cost of his own life.
In 1970, on a hastily organized rescue mission in Vietnam, Army Sgt. 1st
Class Eugene Ashley Jr. relentlessly attacked the enemy. He was wounded
and killed, but his brothers-in-arms were rescued.
All have been honored by the people of New Hanover County. Schools are
named for Anderson, Murray and Ashley. A street and a new Wilmington
park have been named for Halyburton.
Blake wondered if the community had forgotten another such hero. He
checked the Medal of Honor Roll and didn’t find John Edward George’s
name.
His surprise turned to concern and then anger.
Other Wilmington veterans who had found the stone or heard about it had
the same reaction.
Harold G. Davis, a Korean War veteran, called every George in the
Wilmington phone book to see if he could locate the family. One person
he spoke with, whom he remembers as a distant relative, said that family
had the headstone made.
He reported it to the FBI, which enforces federal laws that prohibit
falsely wearing or possessing a Medal of Honor. Claiming to have
received one is illegal if done to get veteran’s benefits.
Davis also called Murray, who lives in South Carolina. One day a few
years ago, on a visit back to Wilmington, Murray went out to the
cemetery at Lebanon Chapel.
“After I saw it, I immediately went back and checked my records -- in
history, there were only two people named George who had received the
Medal of Honor. Neither of them was named John Edward,” said Murray, a
past president of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, during a
recent interview.
“Things like this absolutely disgust me, and it ought to disgust anybody
who cares about things like this.”
*****
A few times a year, someone will walk in or call the North Carolina Room
at the New Hanover County Public Library with a question about John
Edward George. It’s a natural place to check facts about New Hanover
County’s people and past.
“They want to know why we’ve forgotten a hero,” said Beverly Tetterton,
who works there as a local history librarian. “I tell them that, as far
as we know, he didn’t receive the Medal of Honor.”
Owens, George’s sister, said she wants her brother’s memory left alone.
“He did his time,” she said. “He should be remembered as a hero.”
But remembering is exactly the problem, said Davis and Blake.
Communities forget their history and then later rediscover it. Davis was
among those who erected the veterans memorial in Hugh MacRae Park and
commissioned portraits of Anderson, Murray and Ashley that hang in the
library in downtown Wilmington.
“A couple of generations from now, two people from Wilmington are going
to be sitting down and having the same conversation we’re having right
now: Who is this guy? And did he receive the Medal of Honor?” Davis
said. “People, well-meaning people, are going to be misled.”
St. James’ rector, the Rev. Ronald G. Abrams, said the headstone
presents many thorny questions. The George family has rights, as does
the parish.
But, he said, if some official agency, such as the VA, were to object he
would take the issue of the headstone’s removal to the parish council,
known as the vestry. Even then, there would be a question of who would
pay for its removal if that is what the council directed.
Local veterans and Murray say they are in earnest.
“We can certainly get a statement from somebody authoritative to the
church,” Davis said. “We’ve got to get that Medal of Honor tombstone
removed, preferably ground into powder. It must be done.”
Mark Schreiner: (919) 835-1434
mark.schreiner@starnewsonline.com
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NO MEDAL OF HONOR FOR GEORGE, ARMY SAYS
The Army office that confirms and preserves the
records of medals given to Army soldiers has no record that John Edward
George Jr. received the Medal of Honor.
“We checked the files, we checked our other
resources and we checked the Roll of Honor, which we maintain for the
Army,” said Shari Lawrence, deputy public affairs officer for the U.S.
Army Human Services Command in Alexandria, Va. “He is not in there. We
have looked and double-checked and haven’t found anything with this
gentleman’s name on it.”
George could not have received the Medal of
Honor without some notation of it in the records of the Army Awards
Branch, a unit of the human services command, she said.
“Even if a medal is given for a classified
action, for something covert, it would still be listed,” she said.
“Citations are sanitized for operational details, but there would still
be a public record that it was awarded. When it comes to the Medal of
Honor, we don’t hide reports.”
Even when details are classified when a medal
is awarded, all details are eventually released, she said.
“If I had to come out and say it, I’d say it’s
not authentic and it ought to be removed,” Lawrence said after looking
at a picture of the headstone. “It’s going to be a difficult time for
the family, I’m sure.”
– Mark Schreiner
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The Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest
military decoration.
While its origins are connected to certificates and patches of merit
awarded to soldiers and sailors in the early 19th century, the medal
formally began in 1861 when Congress created the Navy Medal of Honor. An
Army version was approved a few months later in 1862. Lawmakers
authorized the president to make presentations “in the name of
Congress.”
Originally awarded for both combat and non-combat heroism, requirements
have stiffened over time. Since World War I, the Medal of Honor has only
been awarded for heroism in combat.
There are three versions of the medal, one each for the Army, Navy and
Air Force. All the designs share common details: a star of bronze, with
one point down, suspended on a light-blue silk neckband that is
decorated with 13 white stars.
Federal regulations require that “the deed performed must have been one
of personal bravery or self-sacrifice so conspicuous as to clearly
distinguish the individual above his comrades and must have involved
risk of life.”
The award process is complex and rigorous. It starts with a
recommendation, typically from a witness, which is then passed on to a
commander, who then decides whether to pass it on. Federal law requires
“incontestable proof” of the heroic act.
For a Medal of Honor to be awarded, the recommendation must receive
approvals at each step in a long chain of command that runs from the
battlefield to the Pentagon and then to the president. At each point of
approval, a commander may turn down the recommendation. At each step, a
commander must certify that the act was one of “extraordinary merit.”
While Medal of Honor citations may be vague to hide operational details,
no award has ever been made in secret.
Because of the seriousness of what the Medal of Honor recognizes, those
who are presented one prefer to be called “recipients” instead of Medal
of Honor “winners.”
Since the Civil War there have been 3,461 Medals of Honor awarded,
recognizing 3,456 separate acts of heroism performed by 3,442
individuals.
– Mark Schreiner
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Larry Scott
