Ashworth was awarded the medal for voluntary participation in the successful rescue of three infantrymen who had accidentally detonated a mine in a German minefield at the risk of his own life. He told me it was a great honor for him to pin the medal on me and I thanked him." Ashworth said: "The President told me he hoped the Government wouldn't be as slow about everything as it was about giving me the medal. Questioned about the event at the reunion here, Mr. A few weeks later President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Tex. Trimble arranged for him to pin the medal on Mr. Kennedy was to visit Greer's Dam in Arkansas, and Rep. Ashworth received his Bronze Star in the mail 18 years after it was awarded to him. "Cotton" is a building contractor in Russellville, Ark.Ī few days later, Mr. Ashworth sent the citation, lent him by his friend Curtis, to Arkansas Rep.
The order simply lay all through the years in the division's files. Ashworth had been killed in action, and that is the reason no arrangements were made for presenting the medal to him. The division headquarters had been notified that Velbert A. Sure enough, there was the citation awarding the Bronze Star to his buddy, Velbert Ashworth. When he got back home, Curtis Crook looked up his copy of the Division General Order No. "I saw the order-it authorized the Bronze Star for both of us." "Whaddaya mean Bronze Star! I never won a Bronze Star in that man's war." "Hey, Cotton, have you still got your Bronze Star?" Curtis asked Cotton. On their trip to Little Rock two years ago, the two vets fell to talking about this, that and the other. Ashworth.īoth veterans are attending the eighth annual reunion of the 818th Tank Destroyer Battalion now in session at the Andrew Johnson Hotel. It was a meeting that proved fateful to Mr. Crook, met by chance as both were en route to Little Rock, Ark., in the summer of 1963. Thanks to Buddy, Hero Gets His Star After 18 Years Thanks to Curtis and Juanita Crook for providing me with a copy of the article. information was not in the original article. This article on the 1965 reunion in Knoxville, TN was written by Bob Cunningham and appeared in a local newspaper.
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