Purple Heart

UPDATED - The Baltimore Ravens may have decided not to hold training camp in Westminster, but the team was in town this week to leave its mark on the Carroll County nevertheless. On Tuesday, Jan. 10, members of the Ravens' grounds crew visited the Best Western Hotel near McDaniel College to paint the team's logo on a hillside along Route 140. The crew was joined by Ravens front office staff, team mascot “Poe” and fans who came by to see the large logo take shape. The event to paint the town purple - literally - was in anticipation of the AFC divisional playoff game against the Houston Texans today, Sunday, Jan. 15, at M&T Bank Stadium.

While I watched March Madness basketball action, a madness of a different sort played out near the farmland of Panjwai, Afghanistan ("Killings of 16 appall Afghans," March 12). According to news reports, 60-year-old Abdul Samad returned to his home on Saturday to find 11 of his relatives had been massacred, most killed with a single shot to the head, their bodies burned. Mr. Samad lost a wife, four daughters younger than 7, four sons, ages 8-12, and two relatives. AU.S. Army staff sergeant is in custody.

WESTMINTER - A 45-year wait finally came to an end Wednesday for Viola Rapisarda.The Westminster resident, widow of World War II serviceman Samuel Ambrister, received the Purple Heart medal for wounds her husband suffered in Germany in 1945.The medal was presented to Rapisarda by U.S. Representative Beverly B.Byron, D-District 6, during a ceremony at City Hall.For years Rapisarda has tried secure the award earned by her husband, who died of leukemia in 1951. At one point, she said, a low-level Army staffer told her over the phone the best place to get a Purple Heart would be a yard sale.

UPDATED - The Baltimore Ravens may have decided not to hold training camp in Westminster, but the team was in town this week to leave its mark on the Carroll County nevertheless. On Tuesday, Jan. 10, members of the Ravens' grounds crew visited the Best Western Hotel near McDaniel College to paint the team's logo on a hillside along Route 140. The crew was joined by Ravens front office staff, team mascot “Poe” and fans who came by to see the large logo take shape. The event to paint the town purple - literally - was in anticipation of the AFC divisional playoff game against the Houston Texans today, Sunday, Jan. 15, at M&T Bank Stadium.

Services for William F. Church Jr., a Purple Heart veteran and retired foreman at the U.S. Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Ruck Funeral Home, 1050 York Road, Towson.Mr. Church, who was 71, died of heart failure Friday at his home on Thetford Road near Towson.Born in Baltimore, he graduated from City College in 1938 and took a job at the Coast Guard Yard. He joined the Navy in February 1944 and served aboard a destroyer escort. He was seriously injured in 1944 during a battle in Germany and spent a year recuperating at Springfield Naval Hospital in Massachusetts.

Last year I met a young woman who had lost her brother in the war in Iraq. Although obviously grieved over her family's loss, she spoke proudly of her brother's service and the ultimate sacrifice he made on our behalf. In relaying the events of his return home, she described her family's deep disappointment that the Army had not presented them with his Purple Heart. They had hoped they would have it in time for his memorial service. They called Congressman Gilchrest's office to see if he could help in this matter.

Spec. Jeffrey Colbert's family gathered Tuesday at Fort Detrick in Frederick to receive a Purple Heart awarded to him after he was killed during a "friendly fire" incident over Iraq last year.Specialist Colbert, 22, formerly of Taneytown and later a resident of Myersville in Frederick County, was one of 26 people killed when two Blackhawk helicopters were shot down by U.S. fighter planes over a no-fly zone in Iraq in April 1994. The American F-15 fighter pilots mistook the helicopters for Iraqi helicopters.

Marine Staff Sgt. Miles N. Kaiser, who last week received a Purple Heart for wounds he suffered in El Salvador 11 years ago, died Monday of complications from injuries he suffered while in the service. He was 43.Gen. Alfred M. Gray, a former commandant of the Marine Corps, bestowed the medal Thursday on Sergeant Kaiser at Stella Maris Hospice at Mercy Medical Center, where he was dying of AIDS. Sergeant Kaiser was injured in a land mine explosion in the summer of 1985 while on a mission in El Salvador.

Michael Eugene Murphy Sr., a Purple Heart recipient who was wounded twice in World War II, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at St. Agnes HealthCare in Baltimore. The longtime resident of Arbutus was 84. Born in West Baltimore, Mr. Murphy graduated from St. Martin's High School at age 16 and opened a barbershop on Fayette Street. He moved to Arbutus in the late 1930s and enlisted in the Army in 1941, before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. A sergeant, he fought in Europe and participated in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day.

The new Maryland Purple Heart Memorial, a solid red granite monument in front of the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground, is a reminder of blood that has been shed in the name of freedom. The 5-foot-tall monument sits on a base stone that is engraved with symbols of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard and merchant marine -- members of which are eligible for the Purple Heart if they are killed or wounded in combat. "It's very appropriate," said retired Maj. Gen. Andrew H. Anderson, commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart of Maryland.

Nicholas J. Passarella, a retired jeweler and World War II veteran who landed at Normandy on D-Day, died Sept. 28 of congestive heart failure at his daughter's Annapolis home. The former longtime Rodgers Forge resident, who moved to Annapolis four years ago, was 90. The son of Italian immigrants, Mr. Passarella was born in Baltimore and reared in Little Italy. He was a Patterson High School graduate. Before joining the Army in 1943, Mr. Passarella worked in a Baltimore war plant.

James Keefe Donahue, former president and CEO of Industrial Shows of America Inc. who also was producer of the International Auto Show and Chesapeake Bay Boat Show, died June 23 of heart failure at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Lutherville resident was 88. Mr. Donahue was born and raised in Arlington, Mass., and was a 1942 graduate of Belmont High School. He enlisted in the Army in 1943 and served with an infantry unit in Europe, receiving a battlefield commission. At the Battle of the Bulge, he established a roadblock that held off the advance of a German unit.

Stanley A. "Jimmy" Makowski, founder of National Press of Baltimore and a decorated World War II veteran, died June 21 of heart failure at his Perry Hall home. He was 93. Mr. Makowski, one of eight children, was born and raised in Canton. He was a graduate of Polytechnic Institute. Drafted in 1941, he was assigned to the 28th Infantry Division and landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944. After being wounded in the legs during the D-Day invasion, he was reassigned to division headquarters, where he was a supply clerk, and later an electrical technician in charge of a power plant and a demolition expert, said a son, Stephen Makowski of Perry Hall.

Robert L. Bunting Sr., a veteran of World War II who was wounded at Iwo Jima and later became a tile setter, died of lung disease April 17 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in downtown Baltimore. He was 87 and lived in Hamilton. Born in Baltimore and raised on Forrester Avenue, he attended a public vocational school and assembled aircraft at the old Glenn L. Martin plant in Middle River. He joined the Marine Corps during World War II and served in the Pacific. He was wounded in the left arm during the Battle of Iwo Jima and spent two years at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

STANFORD PARRIS, 80 Former Virginia congressman Stanford Parris, 80, who served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Northern Virginia's 8th District, died Saturday of heart disease at his home in Mathews County, Va. Parris, who was a lawyer and car dealer before entering politics, was first elected in 1972, then returned to Congress from 1981 to 1991. A one-time Air Force fighter pilot, he survived several hard-fought campaigns and was among the first Republicans to gain a foothold in modern-day Virginia politics.

In a Veterans Day ceremony, former Pfc. James Robert Cook Jr. received recognition for his combat service in World War II and was formally awarded a medal that was a mere 58 years overdue. Last night, he recalled being wounded in a mop-up operation during the Battle of the Bulge and his time in a monastery in Liege, Belgium, that doubled as a hospital. A mortar shell had exploded and sent shrapnel into his knee, qualifying him for the Purple Heart. But until last month, he had only memories and bits of shrapnel in his leg to show for it. He received the medal in the mail last month, and last night -- at Baltimore Christian School, where his daughter Betty Rushing is a teacher -- about 90 people turned out for the ceremony for Cook, 77, originally from East Baltimore and now a Dundalk resident.

William C. Hall, a World War II Marine who was awarded a Purple Heart in 1998 for wounds he had received 53 years earlier during the invasion of Iwo Jima, died Monday of a heart attack at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin. He was 75 and lived in Ocean City. Mr. Hall was a 19-year-old Marine rifleman when he went ashore on Feb. 22, 1945, with the 21st Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, at Iwo Jima, two days after the amphibious landing had begun. Mr. Hall was wounded two days after the famous flag-raising on Mount Suribachi.