NORTHVILLE, Mich.—
A Michigan combat medic wounded in the Korean War received the Purple Heart on Monday, six decades after he was wounded in a Chinese army attack. Conrad Dowel, 79, of Northville, was awarded the medal before the start of the Detroit suburb's Fourth of July parade, The Detroit News reported.
Dowel said he was loading wounded soldiers onto a Jeep when Chinese artillery opened fire.
"A round caught us," he told the Detroit Free Press. "I woke up and someone was looking down at me."
Dowel said he resisted being evacuated but was strapped to a stretcher and airlifted to safety, and his back was repaired with rods and screws.
Someone who has experienced war in the way that he did never forgets, "especially when you have to put your hands into someone's stomach or comfort a man while he's dying," Dowel said.
Before the ceremony, Dowel said he was glad to be getting the medal after all these years. But he said he was nothing special.
"I was a plain GI," Dowel said.
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