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WWII veteran receives medals after 71 years

Crossville Chronicle - 6/22/2017

DALTON, Ga. ?? After waiting for 71 years, World War II veteran Clarence Richardson was finally presented with his medals of honor on Monday.

Near the end of his time as a anti-tank gunner in the Army during WWII, Richardson came down with pneumonia.

As he was preparing to leave, he was told his medals from the War Department had been lost and would have to be re-shipped. Had stayed for one more week in 1946, he would have gotten his medals then, Richardson said on Monday.

At the Dalton office of U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ranger, 91-year-old Richardson finally got his medals on Monday, June 20, 2017. Graves and state Sen. Chuck Payne, R-Dalton, presented Richardson with his service medals and his Bronze Star, which is given for heroic service.

"Of course, I didn't grumble about it," Richardson said of not getting the medals previously. "I just done what they told me to do. That was all you could do."

Graves said that commitment to duty is part of what makes Richardson worthy of being presented with the medals.

"You are a hero," Graves said. "One thing we know is our veterans are very humble. Even with their humility, they are heroes and we want to properly recognize them."

The missing medals were discovered when Thomas Veve, a history professor at Dalton State College, recently interviewed Richardson about his memories of playing in the Crown Mill Baseball League. During their conversation, Richardson mentioned that he had never received his medals. Veve then contacted Payne, who worked with Graves' office, and requested to have them delivered.

Clarence Richardson

"Now, you were an anti-tank crewman," Graves said, before playing the straight man to Richardson. "Does that mean you are anti tanks or do you just blow them up?"

"No, we just blow them up," Richardson said to laughter from his family members and others. "We had a three-inch gun we pulled, and carried our ammunition from a big truck and pulled that gun. We did a lot of shooting over the Rhine River. Did a lot of shooting there.

"I don't know what we hit," he said. "They had an airplane up in the air telling the sergeant how many turns to shoot it. The only thing about it was you had shells busting over your head while you was doing it."

After the ceremony, Graves said honoring veterans is one of the best perks of being a congressman.

"It never gets old, and to be able to share with the members of this generation is always a thrill for me, to spend time with people who did so much for our country," he said.

Whitfield writes for the Dalton, Georgia, Citizen-News.