07/05/2008

Associated Press

After a 63-year wait, Lyle Chambers has received a Purple Heart for his heroism as a 19-year-old Marine private during the World War II South Pacific island battle of Peleliu.

Chambers, now 83, received a large, brown envelope in his mailbox at his home near Silver Lake. It contained his long-awaited medal.

The supervisor of the Navy's Retired Records Unit wrote: "I am grateful for your honorable and brave service and hope you will accept this medal as a symbol of the appreciation we have for your sacrifice during our nation's time of need."

Said Chambers: I was very happy and very surprised."

In the bloody battle of Peleliu in September 1944, one of the fiercest of the Pacific theater fight against the Japanese, Chambers was wounded. He had a piece of shrapnel tear into his back, covering him in blood and knocking him into beach corral hard enough that he chipped a tooth and still carries a scar above his upper lip.

He was not hospitalized. Instead, he helped evacuate the wounded and dead Americans from the island.

After World War II, Chambers returned to the United States and, while raising a family, worked his way up to senior mill technician at Bethleham Steel in Seattle before retiring in 1986. He moved to the Silver Lake area 10 years ago.

Chambers said when he was discharged from the Marine Corps in 1946, he received a Purple Heart uniform ribbon, but no medal. He was told the medal was bogged down in military paperwork and would catch up with him.

The weeks passed, the months passed, the years passed and the decades passed. Still, no Purple Heart.

Chambers said he wrote to the Navy a few times shortly after the war to inquire about his medal and was once told there was no record of his injury. But his discharge papers listed his wounded status.

A conversation with one of his Silver Lake neighbors — and a fellow Marine — got Chambers thinking of his Purple Heart. Phillip Humble helped Chambers track down the Navy address in St. Louis for missing medals. Chambers once again sent off copies of his record and discharge papers.

Three months later, the envelope finally arrived.

"I was afraid to open it," Chambers said.

The Purple Heart hasn't changed what Chambers thinks of himself, though.

"I'm a long way from a hero," he said at his home featuring three full-size American flags and several smaller ones. "A hero is the guy who picks up the wounded and brings them back to safety. Just because you get hit by shrapnel don't make you no hero."

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Information from: The Daily News, http://www.tdn.com