Anyone, who has served knows what hurry up and wait.... means.
I have this huge sense of accomplishment, now that Grandpa Roy's medal case, has been completed.
It now hangs proudly on our wall.....for all to see.
Upon my death it will be presented to David M Badgerow who also chose to join the Army of The United States.
It surely didn't help that in 1973 there was a huge fire that eradicated his military records. Yes....on July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at National Personnel Records Center located in St.Louis, Missouri destroyed......
16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files.
Personnel discharged November 1, 1912, to January 1, 1960
from the Army suffered an 80% loss.
Personnel discharged, September 25, 1947, to January 1, 1964
from The Air Force
(with names alphabetically after Hubbard, James E.)
lost 75%.
The National Personnel Record Center explained........
that no duplicate copies of the records were ever maintained, nor were microfilm copies produced. Neither were any indexes created prior to the fire. In addition, millions of documents had been lent to the Department of Veterans Affairs before the fire occurred.
Therefore, a complete listing of the records that were lost is not available. However, in the years following the fire, the NPRC collected numerous series of records (referred to as Auxiliary Records) that are used to reconstruct basic service information.
In the aftermath of the fire...... the Government issued a Federal Property Management Regulations Bulletin (FPMR B-39) halting Federal agencies from disposing of records that might be useful in documenting military service. Such records have proved vital in efforts to reconstruct basic service information, for those requesting such information.
In the months following the fire, the NPRC initiated several new records recovery and reconstruction efforts, including the establishment of a new branch to deal with damaged records issues.
As many military personnel records had been partially or completely destroyed by the fire,
the new branch's central mission was to reconstruct records for those requesting..... service information from the NPRC.
From the wreckage of the sixth floor, NPRC staffers were able to recover approximately 6.5 million records. As part of the reconstruction effort, the NPRC established a "B" registry file (or Burned File) to index all of the recovered records.
Today, despite their condition, "B-files" are requested daily,
requiring the Preservation Laboratory to devise safe methods for cleaning, treating and making the information in these records available to veterans, Federal agencies......
and the general public.
The metal below,shows proof certain, he was held prisoner. It took hand written letters and cards saved in a shoe box, sent home to his mother and father, to tip the scales in his favor. The letters were the final link of proof, that was needed
to sway those, that were in the position to judge, just whom was deemed a prisoner of war. After all these years Roy Martin Badgerow's honorable sacrifice, for God and Country, was recognized.
As WW ll drew to a close.....
Hundreds of thousands of British and American prisoners of war, held in camps in Nazi occupied Europe, faced the prospect that they would never get home alive.
In the depths of winter, their guards harried them on marches out of their camps and away from the armies that were advancing....
into the heart of Hitler's defeated Germany.
Hundreds died from exhaustion, disease and starvation. THE LAST ESCAPE is told through the testimony of those heroic men, now in their seventies and eighties....
telling their stories publicly for the very first time.
