'They're my heroes': Berwick ceremony honors vets wounded in action

BERWICK — Raymond Beadle Sr. was wounded in a far-off World War II battlefield. Six decades later, Brandon Lee Teeters died in a tank attack in the second Iraq war.

They were among the local people honored Sunday in a Purple Heart Day observance at the Berwick riverfront. Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Post 12182.

A crowd of 20 or so people braved the stormy present Sunday to honor those who suffered in the stormy past. Five recipients of the Purple Heart, the medal given to members of the military wounded or killed in combat.

“It’s the one medal no one wants to earn,” said Claudia Boudreaux of the Post 12182 Auxiliary.

Purple Heart recipients and surviving family members were asked to submit the recipients’ names for the ceremony. The five honored Sunday:

—Beadle, a Marine who was wounded during World War II. He is deceased.

—Allen Pellerin, a Vietnam vet awarded three Purple Heart medals.

—Joseph Boesma, who sustained shrapnel wounds while on patrol during the Vietnam war.

—Michael Leger, a Marine who survived wounds sustained in Vietnam and died of cancer at age 66.

“He suffered the rest of his life from his injuries and PTSD,” said wife Merinda Leger after Sunday’s ceremony.

—Teeters, who was 22 when he was killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom. His father, Glen Richard, accepted the Purple Heart certificate Sunday.

“I fought alongside some of these guys,” said James Prestenback of VFW Post 3665 in Raceland, who also serves as District 3 commander. “They’re my heroes.”

The Purple Heart was first awarded by Gen. George Washington late in the American Revolution, according to the National World War II Museum website. But the common soldier had to wait for 150 years before a system of honors would be developed to recognize his, and later her, sacrifice.

Military luminaries including Gen. Black Jack Pershing and Gen. Douglas MacArthur pushed for the return of the Purple Heart before it was officially authorized in 1932. Medals were award retroactively to people wounded as far back as the Civil War.

From 1942 to 1997, civilians wounded in specified forms of service to the United States — war correspondents, Red Cross workers and civilian employees at military installations among them — were eligible for the Purple Heart. Since 1997, those civilians are eligible for the Defense of Freedom Medal, and the Purple Heart goes exclusively to members of the military.

Aug. 7 is observed each year as National Purple Heart Day.

“When we see [a Purple Heart recipient],” Berwick Mayor Duval Arthur said, “we should thank them for what they’ve done.”