ST PETER, Minn. — Nearly 74 years ago, America stepped in to help defend South Korea from the North.
According to The Pentagon, 54,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in the Korean War.
This week, a Minnesota veteran who put his life on the line during the conflict is finally getting the recognition he deserves.
Earl Meyer, 96, of St. Peter, was finally granted a Purple Heart after the Army denied his previous request because they say his documentation was insufficient.
The decision came after a campaign by his daughters and attorney. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota championed his cause. The Army’s top noncommissioned officer — the sergeant major of the army — took an interest in the case after it had been rejected for years due to a lack of paperwork. U.S. District Judge John Tunheim this year ordered an Army review board to take another look.
The Army sent Meyer's attorney a stack of documents Monday to notify them of the decision, including a certificate in color saying it was “for wounds received in action on June 1951 in Korea.”
"We were pinned down in a valley with machine gun fire," said Meyer. "I didn't even know I'd been hit."
Meyer first served as a sailor in World War II before seeing combat in Korea. He was just one of a few to survive in his platoon when they became under attack that fateful night. He still carries shrapnel in his leg and it was only vaccine from a medic back then that would prove pivotal all these years later.
"He checked me and said I'll put you in for a Purple Heart and then we had a lot of trouble that night and I never saw him again," said Meyer, who went on to earn other medals.
"We were the pushers," said Meyer's daughter, Barb Wright, about she and her two sisters.
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For nine years, they were the ones fighting to get their father the recognition he deserves, even taking the rare move of filing a lawsuit against the Army.
"Lot of rejection letters because we didn't have enough documents, so we went and found more documents with the Veterans Affairs Office," said Wright.
"On my records, it did have a tetanus shot," said Meyer. "And that's one of the last things we found in his papers," said Wright about the medication that ultimately helped prove Meyer had been treated for his wounds.
"He's just a great man," said Wright. "He's a very humble man."
Meyer will be fully recognized when Army officials present him the medal at a public ceremony in St. Peter in the near future.
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