“It means a great deal to me, there’s no doubt about it, a great deal to me,” said 93-year-old Campbell, who was surrounded by three generations of his family, including a grandson wearing his dress U.S. Army uniform, at the Victory Ridge hospice unit on the Dayton VA Medical Center campus.
The Purple Heart is the military’s oldest award, given to those wounded or killed in combat. Although he was injured in the line of duty, the award proved elusive for decades.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
Campbell said he refused hospital treatment after he was wounded and instead was bandaged and went back into the fray. Three other soldiers were killed in the blast that also left Campbell with irreversible hearing damage. For years, embedded shrapnel from the mortar round made its way out of his leg from his war injury.
Campbell’s military service started early, when he was 15 and joined the National Guard in his home state of New York, where his father was commander of the unit. He served in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and also is believed to be one of the last two survivors of Operation Tumbler-Snapper, nuclear weapons tests conducted in early 1952 in Nevada. Campbell said they would stage 4,000 yards from the blast. After the plume settled, they boarded a plane and jumped into ground zero so the miliary could test the effects on soldiers.
Campbell came to the Dayton area in the 1960s to work with friend Bill Dunkle at the former alarm company Dayton Electronics.
He and his late wife, Flossie, raised their children Leroy Jr. and the late Virginia in Miamisburg, where his son and daughter-in-law, Marsha, reside. His family has since grown to six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
For as long as his family can remember, Campbell told stories of his military service and the day he was injured. Although he deserved the Purple Heart, there were several complications to prove it: the nuclear weapons testing was a formerly classified operation; he did not go to a hospital for proper treatment; and his records were destroyed in a fire at a military repository.
Finally, his family reached out to their congressman, U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, for help. The Army was able to reconstruct enough of his records to substantiate he should receive the Purple Heart, but said it could three or more years to process, said daughter-in-law Marsha Campbell.
“He’s in hospice, he doesn’t have three-plus years,” she said.
This is why Jerry Ferris, a retired staff sergeant in the Marines who serves as a Warren County Veterans’ Services commissioner and the Ohio Commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, said it was so important to present Campbell with the coin, along with other tokens of appreciation including several pins and a star from a retired American flag.
Ferris, a Vietnam veteran who was wounded three times, arrived with a surprise for the ceremony also attended by Campbell’s friends, including veterans, and dignitaries.
“I hereby today present one of my Purple Hearts to Leroy Campbell,” Ferris said.
“I’m speechless,” Campbell said after receiving the medal.
Ferris said he met with Campbell last week and that after hearing his story and learning about his service he decided the night before he would give him one of his own medals.
“Nobody knows how long he’ll be with us,” Ferris said. “I wanted him to see it.”
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
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