Families seek special honor for soldiers killed in accidents

Los Angeles ? Richard Perez made just one request when he said goodbye to his son on a tarmac at March Air Reserve Base just east of here.

“Get back here no matter what,” Perez told Rich Jr.

Six months later, and one week shy of his return from Iraq, the 19-year-old Marine was killed when a truck accidentally crushed him.

At the funeral, Perez asked a military officer about his son’s Purple Heart – and was told the military issues the honor only to those killed or wounded in combat. There would be no special medal for Richard Perez Jr.

“These are honors, the highest things that can be bestowed on these guys,” Perez Sr. said recently. “That’s all you’re really left with.”

Following his son’s death in February 2005, Perez joined a small but growing group of families who are petitioning Congress to create an alternative medal honoring those killed in a war zone but away from combat. In Iraq and Afghanistan, that amounts to more than 600 men and women – more than 20 percent of the deaths so far.

Richard Perez Sr. is shown with photos of his son, Richard Perez Jr., in the background at his home in Las Vegas The younger Perez is among more than 600 servicemen and women who died in non-combat incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan and did not receive a Purple Heart. The medal only honors those killed or wounded in combat.

Leading the effort is Eleanor Dachtler, who lost her 19-year-old son during an insurgent attack in Iraq and received her son’s Purple Heart posthumously.

“Anybody who goes over there and gives their life for their country deserves to be recognized,” said Dachtler, whose son, Lance Cpl. Nicholas Anderson of Las Vegas, was killed in November 2004. “How can you sit there and say one person’s life is less valuable than another person’s life?”

Dachtler has been urging people to contact their congressional representatives about the proposed new medal. And she has enlisted Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has instructed his staff to speak with the Pentagon about it.

U.S. deaths in Iraq

As of Sunday, at least 2,466 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,943 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

“When a family loses a loved one it’s very difficult to discuss what they should or should not be awarded,” said Ray Funderburk, spokesman for the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

An estimated 500,000 people alive today have been awarded a Purple Heart, according to Funderburk. The group, he said, would likely not oppose a separate medal for those killed in non-hostile action.

“I don’t think it would affect the nature of the Purple Heart or the meaning of the Purple Heart,” Funderburk said. “But it would have to be something other than a Purple Heart.”