After 62 years, WWII vet gets service medals

AT LAST:
Retired engineer and World War II veteran Edward Stanton, 85, looks over the seven service medals and ribbons he received Wednesday, 62 years after leaving the U.S. Army.

July 2 was the day Edward Stanton had been awaiting since his honorable discharge Feb. 1, 1946, from the U.S. Army’s Company C, an engineering combat battalion, that saw extensive World War II action during the liberation of the Philippine Islands and the occupation of Japan after a peace treaty was signed.

In the mail last week, Stanton received four blue cardboard boxes filled with seven different combat ribbons, service medals and other wartime decoration. Included in the haul was a good conduct medal, an American Campaign medal, an Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two bronze service stars attached, a World War II Victory medal, a Philippine Liberation ribbon with a bronze service star, an honorable service lapel button for service during WWII, and a sharpshooter badge with a rifle bar.

“Better late than never, is one of my Dad’s favorite slogans, but I feel that this thing is finally over,” said Stanton. “World War II is a chapter of my life that I can finally put behind me now.”

Stanton, born on Dec. 7, 1922, in Fairfield, has lived in Anderson since 1993.

“I had a sister living here then, and my wife Bethelene liked the country living, the woods, the rivers and things,” the 85-year-old widower said as his normally expressive eyes grew increasingly moist.

“I built here a home at 1516 Ferry St., up by the high school. I was just finishing it up in October of 1998 when she passed on,” Stanton recalled with obvious emotion.

“She was a high ranking health official,” Stanton said of his former wife, who died at age 67.

“I first met her while I was finishing up my engineering course work at the University of California at Berkeley. Even though I had been an Army engineer, I still needed credentials from a California university to work as an engineer in the state,” Stanton explained.

Following his time in the U.S. Army, Stanton spent 17 years supervising the public works department in Fairfield.

Too busy earning a living to worry about chasing down some missing medals, Stanton went on about his career for many years until a group of fellow veterans convinced him in January of 2008 to reopen the case. After several frustrating attempts on his own dealing with the military bureaucracy, Stanton finally decided to contact Congressman Wally Herger’s casework manager LeMoine Sharpe at Herger’s field office in Redding.

“Wally Herger and I have worked on many things in the past including the right to possess guns, protecting Social Security benefits and other topics. This case is more than 60 years old, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation that Wally (Herger) would tackle this for me,” said Stanton.

Now that he has his World War II and U.S. Army service ribbons and medals, Stanton said he may visit a local frame shop and design a little shadow box to properly display those artifacts.

“I don’t suppose at this late date the U.S. Army would be interested in providing me with the other $200 in discharge pay they originally promised,” Stanton joked. “When I mustered out, they gave me a bus ticket and $100 of my $300 muster bonus and promised they would send the rest later.”