HENNESSEY—Earlier this month Hennessey joined the ranks of Purple Heart City.
More than 60 cities in the state have been designated as such. In Northwest Oklahoma, Hennessey is the fourth town to receive the title alongside Enid, Garber, and Okeene, which recently became one in December.
Elaine Johns, executive director of Woodring Wall of Honor and a champion for all things military, has plans to ensure more Northwest Oklahoma towns join the list; on the radar are Pond Creek, Medford, and Canton.
In addition, Johns aims to help Canton Lake secure the label of Purple Heart Lake like Keystone Lake did two summers ago.
So how does a town like Hennessey earn this honorary designation? The town council has to collaborate with Oklahoma Military Order of the Purple Heart, then officially proclaim the title at an upcoming council meeting and erect Purple Heart City signs at the town entrances.
Becoming a Purple Heart City is meant not only an acknowledgement but an expression of gratitude and respect to the men and women of that community who were wounded or killed in combat defending the freedoms that all Americans enjoy, according to James Battles, who serves as Chapter 820 commander for Oklahoma Military Order of the Purple Heart. He is the person rural towns in Northwest Oklahoma coordinate with to gain a Purple Heart City designation.
Military Order of the Purple Heart was congressionally chartered in 1932 for the protection and mutual interest of all who have received the decoration. Composed exclusively of Purple Heart recipients, it is the only veteran service organization comprised of wounded combat veterans.
The Purple Heart is the nation’s oldest military medal. Gen. George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army created it in 1782; back then it was known as the Badge of Military Merit.
His instructions for receiving this badge were as follows:
“The General ever desirous to cherish virtuous ambition in his soldiers, as well as to foster and encourage every species of Military merit, directs that whenever any singularly meritorious action is performed, the author of it shall be permitted to wear on his facings over the left breast, the figure of a heart in purple cloth, or silk, edged with narrow lace or binding. Not only instances of unusual gallantry, but also of extraordinary fidelity and essential service in any way shall meet with a due reward.”
Three Revolutionary War soldiers from New York received the burlap or felt-like fabric badge from Washington himself as the first recipients.
However, no one was awarded a Purple Heart again for over a century. It is unknown why.
According the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the award had “broken service,” ignored for nearly 150 years until it was re-introduced on Feb. 22, 1932, on the 200th anniversary of Washington’s birth.
That year, the current Purple Heart medal was developed by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The design by U.S. Army heraldic specialist Elizabeth Will is in the shape of a purple heart bordered by bronze with a bust of America’s first president in the center and his coat-of-arms at the top. The metal heart is attached to a purple ribbon edged with white.
Prior to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order in 1942, the Purple Heart was exclusively an Army award. He authorized award of the Purple Heart to personnel from all of the military services and made it retroactive to Dec. 7, 1941.
The Purple Heart is only awarded to service members who are injured as a result of enemy action.
It is estimated 1.8M Purple Hearts have been given either in person or posthumously (since 1962 thanks to President John F. Kennedy) to military veterans in the United States; the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor does not have a comprehensive list due to a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in 1973.
An estimated 1.3K Purple Heart recipients live in Oklahoma, including several in the Hennessey area. One such recipient is Jack Toney, who lives north of town on his great-grandparents’ farm.
The 76-year-old U.S. Army veteran vividly remembers his jungle days in Vietnam. Drafted in 1968, he turned 21 in that bamboo killing field. Within a two-week period, he was unceremoniously promoted from an E-4 to an E-6 as others in his company were mortally wounded or perished alongside him.
Toney himself was wounded three times—in the shoulder, chest, and leg; he admitted he should have been sent home to the U.S. immediately, but instead he kept getting patched up and returning to duty.
“You just keep going,” Toney stated. “Words can’t tell it, pictures can’t show it. Being there was bad enough.”
It was filthy dirty, he said. It rained for three months straight near that Cambodian border, and it was extremely difficult to stay dry while carrying 100 pounds of gear.
“I don’t remember being scared. I didn’t have time to be scared,” Toney said. Out of 22 soldiers in his company, he was only one of two who came back alive.
“There were too many in body bags,” Toney recalled.
His worst day in Vietnam, he said, was the day the fellow young man standing next to him, Harry Underwood, was shot and killed; Underwood had been scheduled by Toney to ship out to Saigon the very next day to get out of the line of fire and work on automobiles.
The memory of Underwood still haunts Toney to this day, but also fuels his desire to honor him and others who served in Vietnam in any way he can. That includes contributing his time and effort to veteran organizations such as Veterans of Foreign Wars and Woodring Wall of Honor.
Toney has three Purple Hearts, which is somewhat a rarity. To date, the most Purple Hearts awarded to an individual is nine.
“You don’t do it for the accolades. I was a little crazy back then,” Toney said, adding it wasn’t cool to serve in the war back then, even if you went with intention of doing the best you could in a tough situation. “I’m proud to be a veteran and I’m proud of what I did.”
Fellow Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient Steve Frushour, 78, during a recent visit to Woodring Wall of Honor on his way home to Texas, said he was immersed in patriotism in the home and at school growing up. His uncles served in World War II.
Much like Toney, when he was drafted, Frushour didn’t dispute the call of duty. He served in the U.S. Army as an artillery officer before changing gears as an orthopedic surgeon and later a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air National Guard.
While with his artillery unit five miles from the Cambodian border, Frushour said he was in the wrong place at the wrong time one night and ended up with untold amounts of shrapnel in his wrist. Those wounds earned him a Purple Heart.
When Frushour drives into a town like Hennessey or Enid and sees the Purple Heart City signs, he feels a rush of pride for that community.
“To me, the sign means it’s a patriotic city,” he said. Johns agreed.
“Even if there are no Purple Heart veterans in that town, it just shows they love their military,” she said.