Former Marine Cpl. Jackie Drakeford, a Fort Mill veteran, was selected to represent fellow Purple Heart recipients from South Carolina in New York this spring as part of the annual Purple Heart Patriot Project, a program of the National Purple Heart Honor Mission. Included among Patriot Project events were historic sites visits to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; a private tour of the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor; Washington's Revolutionary War headquarters in Newburgh, N.Y., where he established the Badge of Military Merit; and the 9/11 Memorial in New York City.
As the nation continues to celebrate 250 years since its founding, Americans acknowledge that our resiliency would not have been possible without the sacrifice of our 1.8 million-plus Purple Heart recipients. Across generations and continents, everyday Americans, of all backgrounds, have stepped forward to answer their country’s call to duty to defend liberty and freedom from the darkness of Nazism, communism, fascism and terrorism. They gave their lives or bore the physical and emotional scars of war for a lifetime.
The conflict in Vietnam had been raging for about a decade when George Stavropoulos enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He deployed to the war zone on April 23, 1967, and set out on his first patrol the next day.
In the process of cleaning out an apartment in Dallas, a medal surfaced, alerting the cleaner to something special. It was a Purple Heart apparently awarded to U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Curtis R. Patton for his service with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam. Patton, 26, along with 20 others in his unit, was killed in action Feb. 4, 1968.
News 5 anchor Rob Powers was in Chippewa Lake, Ohio, for the return of Staff Sergeant Curtis Patton's Purple Heart, which had been lost for nearly six decades and was recently discovered in Texas.
Nearly six decades after Staff Sgt. Curtis R. Patton was killed in Vietnam, his Purple Heart has been returned to his family. Patton’s sister, Faye Wilcox, and brother, Jerry Patton, accepted the medal on Monday during a ceremony at Chippewa Lake Yacht Club, attended by family members, veterans and representatives of the Purple Heart Honor Mission.
