CHINA GROVE — If you’re wounded or you die ... probably the medals come. Most of the time.
Or do they? I remember talking to Brown Overcash of China Grove, when his son, Davie, was taking him back to see Italy again, that faraway land where he went in 1944 to fight for America and the world and was wounded two days before his company got to Rome.
When the war was over, he got a Purple Heart and a Good Conduct Medal and the European Theatre medal, and his wife put them all together in a frame that hangs in the den.
But his Bronze Star for meritorious service in combat?
It didn’t come until 1984.
And Hyatt J. McKinney’s medals — all seven of them — didn’t come until Sunday when Maj. Gen. H. Douglas Robertson, commanding general of the 108th Division, presented them to him 56 years late at a special ceremony at the Hefner VA Medical Center.
They might never have come if he hadn’t needed his discharge papers, and he and his wife, Lurline, went to the bank and got them out of their safe deposit box.
“And on there it said he had four or five medals,” she says, “but I had never seen them, and he said he never got them.
“When he was discharged, they never did call his name, so he became so upset, and they told him he wasn’t physically able to face civilian life at that time. He had lost so much weight and he was so nervous.”
Now 85, Mack McKinney was in the first group drafted for World War II in 1940, the year before the the United States got into the war.
After Pearl Harbor, he was in the first shipment of men sent across the Atlantic to the European Theater. He went through the African campaign and fought with his unit across Germany, including the Battle of the Bulge.
When it was over, instead of being discharged at Fort Bragg, he was sent to a convalescent center in Miami, Fla., where many hotels had been converted for the use of the armed forces.
And he got no medals when he was discharged from the Florida center — and didn’t think of them again until his wife asked her question and they realized they’d never come.
He’d been too busy living to think about those medals.
One of a Hyde County family with 12 children, he’d returned home after the war, and in a short time the family moved to Rowan County to farm, and he continued dairy farming until he retired about a year ago.
He and Lurline had one daughter who died at birth in 1952. Then they became foster parents, taking care of 30 children before they adopted Juanita Huerta, who now lives next door.
But after opening the safety deposit box that day, they decided to mention it to Dr. Barbara White, a nurse and clinical education director at the VA Medical Center who is also their good friend.
“She helped me write a letter,” Lurline McKinney says — and more letters.
“We were ages getting them,” and then one day they came. “They were in a manila envelope, securely wrapped, but they didn’t have a note in there or an apology or anything. They were just in that envelope. We didn’t know what to expect, but we were sort of let down that they didn’t have some kind of comment.
“And Barbara thought it wasn’t right, so she told the people at the hospital, and they started working on it.”
The result was Sunday’s ceremony with about 50 good friends and people from the hospital and good refreshments and good conversation after Gen. Robertson officially presented Mack McKinney with the American Campaign Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, the Weapons Qualification Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal and a special medal from his 108th Reserve Division.
Everybody was impressed.
And they were impressed with Mack and his memories.
He first served under Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. And his second general was Gen. Omar Bradley.
What’s more, he still remembers both of them distinctly.
And he remembers being very frightened when he was in Normandy — and how nervous he got and how much weight he lost.
But maybe his most vivid memories are of those two bullets that found him.
One, he told the crowd gathered in his honor, lodged under his helmet, and that helmet saved his life. His water bottle defused the second bullet — and also saved his life.
So he and friends celebrated his life and his service to his country Sunday, and everybody agreed with the general that the medals were long overdue.
People read about these things, he said. Sometimes they’re not awarded until after the soldiers who earned them are gone.
But that’s not what happened for Mack McKinney.
And he and Lurline are still glowing and talking about how much they appreciated what Barbara did and what a wonderful day it was.
And like Brown Overcash, it took a while, but Hyatt J. McKinney, World War II veteran, has his medals.
Contact Rose Post at 704-797-4251 or rpost@salisburypost.com
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