WW II vet honored with ceremony to present medals

By Keith Purtell
Phoenix Staff Writer

August 26, 2008 11:43 pm

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Staff Sgt. Dale E. Kunkleman didn’t know he was going to get his military medals Tuesday afternoon.
He thought he was going to a doctor’s appointment at the Jack C. Montgomery VA Medical Center.
Kunkleman, 86, a veteran of World War II who served in Italy, arrived in a room full of center staff and officers in the Oklahoma National Guard.
Kunkleman laughed later, saying that he made a social blunder because he didn’t know what was going on and didn’t realize the soldiers’ rank.
“When I first came in I called them to attention,” he said. “I did a faux pas. I didn’t know one of them was a brigadier general.”
After that, he figured out that the group was there to award him his medals lost many years ago. Also, he had never been given a ceremony for his Purple Heart medal.
Unknown to him, his daughter Sherry McLaughlin and her husband Jim had spent more than a year working with the government to restore Kunkleman’s medals. They were helped by Chris Ford, a center employee who is a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.
The ceremony at the center included a color guard and comments by Brigadier Gen. Gary D. Bray, Command Sgt. Major David L. Keating, and Chief Warrant Officer Paul E. Merchant.
One account described his courage as a combat infantryman. He was part of a group of men trying to take back Rome from enemy forces. Badly wounded in both arms, he treated himself on the battlefield with bare-bones medical supplies until he could be taken to a hospital.
In 1945, he was sent stateside and spent a lengthy amount of time in a hospital being treated for burns and gangrene. At one point he died and was resuscitated by doctors.
After the description of his bravery, Kunkleman had three medals pinned on his chest: the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge.
After the ceremony, he was soft spoken about all the attention.
“It’s wonderful,” he said “I had heard of this happening for other people, but I never thought it would happen to me.”
Kunkleman also praised the medical center staff for the way they recently treated him for a broken hip.
“The VA is wonderful,” he said. “The physical therapy people and everyone else; they’re a good bunch of people.”
Sherry McLaughlin wiped away tears as she described how she got the idea to restore her dad’s medals.
“About 1 1/2 years ago he got very ill,” she said. “The second night in the ICU he told me about how his original Purple Heart was just laid on a table next to his bed when he was in a hospital.”
Kunkleman’s son Bruce Kunkleman talked about his father’s “unlimited amount of jokes” and mental sharpness.
“It was important to us to show him the appreciation he should have had,” he said.
Kunkleman also has another daughter, Ann Cox, of Muskogee and another son, Dale, Jr. of Claremore.

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