PROCEEDINGS

	IN THE CASE OF: 

	BOARD DATE:           1 August 2000
	DOCKET NUMBER:   AR1999030189

	I certify that hereinafter is recorded the true and complete record of the proceedings of the Army Board for Correction of Military Records in the case of the above-named individual.  

	Mr. Carl W. S. Chun
Mr. David H. Keller		Director
Analyst	

  The following members, a quorum, were present:

	Ms. Deborah S. Jacobs 		Chairperson	
	Ms. Karol A. Kennedy  		Member	
	Mr. Ernest W. Lutz Jr.		Member	

	The applicant and counsel if any, did not appear before the Board.

	The Board considered the following evidence:

	Exhibit A - Application for correction of military 
                records
	Exhibit B - Military Personnel Records (including
	            advisory opinion, if any)

FINDINGS:

1.  The applicant has exhausted or the Board has waived the requirement for exhaustion of all administrative remedies afforded by existing law or regulations.

2.  The applicant requests that his deceased father (hereafter referred to as the former service member, or FSM) be awarded the Purple Heart.  He also requests that block 34 of his father’s WD AGO Form 53-55 (Enlisted Record and Report of Separation) be corrected to show that he was wounded.

3.  The applicant submitted a statement to the Board that his father passed away on 26 December 1999 due to a long, courageous battle with Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  He signed the application as his father’s son and next of kin; his mother has been deceased since 1988.

4.  The applicant also states that during World War II, while his father was assigned to General Patton’s Third Army, 155 Howitzer Division (sic), he received shrapnel wounds to his lower torso from an enemy mortar.  This happened sometime from the winter of 1944 to the spring of 1945.  In support of his request, the applicant submits a copy of his father’s WD AGO Form 53-55, his Honorable Discharge Certificate, his own statement concerning this action, a statement from his neurologist, and extracts from the Saint Paul-Ramsey County, Minnesota, Department of Public Health medical records concerning shrapnel removal from the FSM.

5.  The FSM’s military records were lost or destroyed in the National Personnel Records Center fire of 1973.  Information herein was obtained from reconstructed personnel records.

6.  The FSM was inducted and entered active duty on 29 June 1944.  He served in the European Theater of Operations from 4 March 1945 to 23 May 1946 and participated in two campaigns.

7.  He was discharged on 6 June 1946 as a result of demobilization.  His WD AGO Form 53-55 does not list the Purple Heart as an authorized award and block 34 (Wounds Received in Action) states “None.”

8.  The consultation sheets and discharge summary from Saint Paul-Ramsey County Department of Public Health, dated 11 March 1991, provide impressions that the FSM’s “primary community acquired staph aureus bacteremia, source uncertain (possible right leg old shrapnel related or right ankle superficial abrasion related vs. primary osteomyelitis),” with recommendations of “plain x-ray of right lower extremeity to exclude osteomyelitis at the site of old shrapnel.”  There is a history of the FSM “bumping his right ankle and noticed some mild erythema around an open sore there and in addition noticed some increased 

pain and swelling in his right leg where old shrapnel injury was.  Over several years he has had a recurrent problem with shrapnel problems in that right lower extremity.”  The discharge summary states that the FSM “had staph aureus bacteremia.  Source of the bacteremia was likely a wound on the ankle, sustained by bumping against the rail on the bed, which happened repeatedly, breaking open the wound.  He also noticed that he had had little bits of shrapnel which had extruded from the leg, as they have done occasionally since World War II in the Battle of the Bulge.”

9.  Army Regulation 600-8-22 provides, in pertinent part, that the Purple Heart is awarded for a wound sustained as a result of hostile action.  Substantiating evidence must be provided to verify that the wound was the result of hostile action, the wound must have required treatment by a medical officer, and the medical treatment must have been made a matter of official record.

CONCLUSIONS:

1.  Notwithstanding the lack of official military medical records to support this case, the extracts of medical records provided by the FSM’s next of kin clearly testify that the FSM suffered shrapnel wounds as a result of hostile action during World War II, and as such is entitled to award of the Purple Heart.

2.  In view of the foregoing, it would be appropriate to correct the FSM’s records as recommended below.

RECOMMENDATION:

That all of the Department of the Army records related to this case be corrected by awarding the FSM the Purple Heart for wounds sustained as a result of hostile action during World War II.

BOARD VOTE:  

__dsj____  __kak___  __ewl___  GRANT AS STATED IN RECOMMENDATION

________  ________  ________  GRANT FORMAL HEARING

________  ________  ________  DENY APPLICATION

		__Deborah S. Jacobs___
		        CHAIRPERSON

INDEX

CASE ID	AR1999030189	
SUFFIX		
RECON		
DATE BOARDED	20000801	
TYPE OF DISCHARGE		
DATE OF DISCHARGE		
DISCHARGE AUTHORITY		
DISCHARGE REASON		
BOARD DECISION	GRANT	
REVIEW AUTHORITY		
ISSUES         1.	107.00	
2.	110.00	
3.		
4.		
5.		
6.