By Ruth Ann Replogle
Hennessey is joining the ranks with 60+ other towns in Oklahoma as a Purple Heart City.
To earn this honorary designation, the town council collaborated with Oklahoma Military Order of the Purple Heart. Mayor Harold Shaw officially will officially proclaim the title at the upcoming council meeting and Purple Heart City signs will be erected at all four town entrances.
Becoming a Purple Heart City is meant to be not only an acknowledgement but an expression of gratitude and respect to the men and women of that community who were wounded or killed in combat defending the freedoms that all Americans enjoy, according to James Battles, who serves as Chapter 820 commander for Oklahoma Military Order of the Purple Heart.
Military Order of the Purple Heart was congressionally chartered in 1932 for the protection and mutual interest of all who have received the decoration. Composed exclusively of Purple Heart recipients, it is the only veteran service organization comprised of wounded combat veterans.
The Purple Heart is our nation’s oldest military medal. Gen. George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army created it in 1782; back then it was known as the Badge of Military Merit. Three Revolutionary War soldiers received the medal from Washington himself as the first recipients.
The current Purple Heart medal was developed by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1932. The metal design is in the shape of a purple heart bordered with gold with a bust of America’s first president in the center and his coat-of-arms at the top.
The Purple Heart is only awarded to service members who are injured as a result of enemy action. It is estimated 1.8M Purple Hearts have been given either in person or posthumously to military veterans in the United States; the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor does not have a comprehensive list due to a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in 1973.
An estimated 1.3K Purple Heart recipients live in Oklahoma, including several in the Hennessey area. One such recipient is Jack Toney, who lives north of town on his great-grandparents’ farm.
The 76-year-old vividly remembers his jungle days in Vietnam. Drafted in 1968, he turned 21 in that bamboo killing field. Within a two-week period, he was unceremoniously promoted from an E-4 to an E-6 as others in his company were mortally wounded or perished alongside him.
Toney himself was wounded three times—in the shoulder, chest, and leg; he admitted he should have been sent home to the U.S. immediately, but instead he kept getting patched up and returning to duty.
“You just keep going,” Toney stated. “Words can’t tell it, pictures can’t show it. Being there was bad enough.”
It was filthy dirty, he said. It rained for three months straight near that Cambodian border, and it was extremely difficult to stay dry while carrying 100 pounds of gear.
“I don’t remember being scared. I didn’t have time to be scared,” Toney said. Out of 22 soldiers in his company, he was only one of two who came back alive.
He has three Purple Hearts, which is somewhat a rarity. To date, the most Purple Hearts awarded to an individual is nine.
“But you don’t do it for the accolades. I was a little crazy back then,” Toney said, adding it wasn’t cool to serve in the war back then, even if you went with intention of doing the best you could in a tough situation. “I’m proud to be a veteran and I’m proud of what I did.”
