BLAINE, Minn. – (April 2, 2015) – It’s not every day you get to be in the presence of An American Hero. That’s what several people came out to witness at the Blaine VFW Monday night. They came to honor Calvin Prince. He’s a WWII veteran who received the bronze star medal for valor. State commander of the VFW, Gary Anderson noted that it’s one of the more prestigious awards in the military.
“It is one of our highest awards, the next above it is a silver star and then there’s only a couple of medals above that so it’s fourth or fifth highest award you can receive,” said Anderson.
Anderson explained that Calvin Prince thought he would never see again.
“Calvin Prince had lost his commemorative award for his bronze star that he received in WWII and wanted to try and get a copy of that again. Rep Emmer heard about this and went through the department of the Army and was able to get a copy that will be presented to him tonight for his courageous duty in WWII,” said Anderson.
Congressman Tom Emmer said that he and his office found it important to make this day memorable.
“Once the award is reissued, normally what happens is the award just gets mailed out to the veteran. In our office, and I credit Andrew and Zack and others, they decided that this is a great opportunity to once again, celebrate a true hero, one of our last WWII vets who happens to be in the area,” said Emmer.
His family originally found out about the award through a little research of their own. Prince’s Son-in-law, John Burke said is daughter, who works for the Anoka County Library was able to find out more information about him and groups he had been a part of in the army.
“Some president I think of that group of people had contacted my daughter to, let her grandfather know that he had some awards coming and they wanted to make sure he got them so she kept researching and I think that’s what really got this all rolling,” Burke said.
John explained that before this, his family hadn’t even known about the award or much about his time in the service.
“He didn’t talk about it a whole lot- and about things few years ago, just the last few years he’s kind of opened up a little bit and even our youngest daughter had mentioned that she got to know her grandfather more now than the last couple years than she had in the last 30 years.”
For him, it was too difficult to talk about.
“He seems to be more at peace with things because in the past he’d never wanted to talk about it because he said it brought up too many bad things but he’s come to overcome that now and he is very proud today and he’ll remember this for the rest of his life,” Burke said.
On the day he received the award, Prince was able to tell his story.
“I did what I had to do to protect the radio operator; he didn’t have nobody to even protect him so I stayed with him and helped him, made sure he could get the artillery in where they wanted,” Prince explained.
For Prince, this experience was more than just memorable.
“Unbelievable. I had no idea how much it is to me. I’ve got a lot of friends and people here. It’s an honor, beyond that – I can’t say enough about it. I never believed this would ever happen. I sure appreciate it,” Prince said.
He explained that to him, his act of bravery was simply an act of duty.
“It’s once in a lifetime that something like that but you do what you have to do.”
Words spoken like a true hero.
