Willow Glen Resident

Cover Story

Photograph courtesy of Zoe Lofgren's office

Never Too Late: Harry Muff's daughter, Mary McCulloch, tried for 10 years to replace her father's stolen Purple Heart. Rep. Zoe Lofgren's office cut through the red tape. Lofgren (center) pinned a replacement medal on the veteran.

From the Heart

Veteran's stolen medal is replaced

By Mayra Flores De Marcotte

Sixty-one years ago, Willow Glen resident Harry J. Muff received a Purple Heart for being wounded during a World War II battle in Italy. Almost 9,000 men in his battalion received this medal.

"It was a long, drawn-out battle," Muff says.

The Germans were shooting at his platoon from all directions, including atop the trees. There was heavy artillery and mortar fire coming at them.

"If you were in the wrong spot, you didn't make it," Muff says.

There were 75 men in Muff's platoon. He was hit and had shrapnel in his left arm.

"I felt pretty lucky that was all I got," he says.

After being hit, Muff stayed on the line for two days before a replacement was found.

"They had wrapped my arm up, and I just kept doing my thing," he says.

At the army hospital at the camp, his bandages were rewrapped and he was sent to Naples, where he had surgery on his arm.

Although Muff retained most of his dexterity, his nerves and tendons were severely damaged, and he has no feeling in his left hand. Surgeons could not remove all the shrapnel.

A lump of scar tissue from his surgery is still visible on his wrist. The drama of war should have ended there, but it continued stateside when his metal was stolen.

His daughter, Mary McCulloch, has spent the last 10 years trying to replace her father's medal. But she hit a dead end working with the U.S. Army and veterans organizations.

She refused to give up because, she says, "It was important to his children but most importantly to his grandchildren to know the sacrifices this generation made for their country."

Three months ago McCulloch approached U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren's office.

The family's saga touched a cord with the congresswoman.

"He fought in such an important war," says congressional aide Jim Nguyen. " We just wanted to do everything we could to replace it."

The family had met with resistance because the National Personnel Records in St. Louis, Mo., had had a fire in 1973, where records for anyone with a last name starting with the letters M-O serving between 1921 and 1959 destroyed. There were no records that could authenticate Muff's award.

"It was just bad luck," he says.

But after sending the department copies of Muff's honorable discharge paperwork and proof that he had received the medal in the first place, Nguyen received a replacement medal a month later.

"The process went really quick," he says.

Lofgren's father was also a military man and it was important to her to present the recognition to Muff, Nguyen says.

During the ceremony, Muff sat quiet while fellow veterans spoke about their experiences. Then, Muff received his the medal.

"He's 86 but sharp as a tack," Nguyen says. "He gave a rousing and emotional speech. He had lost several of his mates in that particular battle. He said, 'It's not about my fight; it's about making peace in this time of war.' "

Army man

Muff was born in the farming town of Crete, Neb., in 1920. He moved to San Diego 20 years later, where he worked on aircrafts and went to college.

"The West Coast appealed to me," Muff says. "I could either move east or west, and the West had better weather."

While doing mechanical work on aircrafts, Muff studied general engineering. But before finishing his first year in 1944, the 24-year-old was drafted into the army.

"We knew it was coming, and my parents were sweating," Muff says, "but we had no choice. You just had to work with it and enjoy your time as much as you could."

Muff did his basic training at Camp Roberts in San Miguel. After that, he was shipped out across the Atlantic Ocean and into Italy.

"We traveled up the coast of Africa," Muff says. "We pulled into a harbor to fuel up, and Navy officers were having a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. We had to eat our cold rations while smelling their breakfast. We hadn't even had anything warm, let alone fresh for weeks."

The rations weren't the worst he'd had but weren't the best, either.

The food consisted of dehydrated vegetables and Spam.

"We had Spam coming out of our ears," he says.

Once in Italy, the men tried their luck with the civilians.

"When we got to Italy, one of our men that spoke Spanish negotiated with an Italian woman for a spaghetti dinner," Muff says. "It was horrible but not her fault. She didn't have all the ingredients."

This was the last time the men dined on anything fresh.

Muff, part of the Second Battalion, 85th Mountain Infantry Division, fought against the German forces in Italy.

"We were pretty much in the boondocks most of the time," Muff says. "We were up behind the mountains."

Muff says the hours were long and the terrain unforgiving. It was fall, and the days were usually overcast and filled with snow.

"Keeping warm was pretty important," Muff says. "We had pretty heavy clothes and had to keep moving."

The soldiers were all issued khaki army jackets, trousers, underclothes, a wool coat and three pairs of wool socks.

"Our socks were the most important," Muff says. "We had to have dry socks to keep warm. We would hike for five miles, and your feet would be wet from all the sweat. Then some men got frozen feet."

He says that the men would wash their socks, a pair at a time, to keep them clean. Because they sometimes didn't stop for hours at a time, they would hang them inside the underwear they were wearing to dry.

The sleeping conditions weren't much better.

"For the most part, we slept outside in sleeping bags," Muff says. "Once we were high enough in the mountains, and we had left our packs behind. We slept in our coats on the ground."

The soldiers deployed a few tricks to keep warm in the snow.

"We would break limbs from pine trees and put them on the ground to sleep on," Muff says. "When it was really cold, we dug fox holes in the snow. That helped to insulate us from the cold wind."

Under those cold and trying conditions the men didn't sleep much.

"When you felt bad about the situation you were in, you just looked over to the guy next to you and realized that he's not doing any better," Muff says. "It was a different world. There wasn't anything like it before, and there's nothing like it now."

While Muff recuperated in the hospital, the battalion had crossed the Apennines mountains from the south to the north and entered and crossed the Po River Valley. The battalion participated in three major offensive attacks, which cost the lives of 1,156 soldiers and wounded 6,314. The Italian campaign involved some of the worst fighting in the war, causing 114,000 U.S. casualties. The battle ended with the surrender of the German forces in Italy.

While his battalion was fighting Italy, he was sent to an army hospital in Springfield, Mo. Muff received an honorable discharge in 1946.

Generations follow

Two weeks before Muff received his medal, another member of his family left his home to serve.

On Dec. 5, 2005, Muff's grandson Tim McCulloch stunned his family when he announced he had enlisted in the Army.

"I was surprised, and it took my husband and I some time to come to terms with his decision," Mary McCulloch says, "but we love him and support him. He's just following his heart and dreams."

Her son had just finished his master's degree program at the University of Arizona and received his degree in international relations.

"He plans on going into military intelligence," his mother says.

Muff was also surprised to hear about his grandson's plans.

"I couldn't believe it when I first found out," he says, "but the more I thought about it, I realized he'd fit right in. He's really good at analyzing people, and that's part of the job."

Tim's decision to enlist put even more weight on his mother's decision to set things right for her father.

"I think this recognition reminds us of a sacrifice of a generation," she says. "It reflects my father's core values in life."