Lawrence resident Scottie Lingelbach is handed a certificate acknowledging the presentation of the Bronze Star and the World War II Victory Medal to her late husband, Dale Lingelbach, a 1st lieutenant during World War II, from Col. Tim Reese, chief of staff of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Friday, Nov. 5, 2010 at the Dole Institute of Politics. At left is a photograph of Lt. Dale Lingelbach, who was posthumously presented the medals for his service as a machine gun platoon leader with the 3rd Battallion, 47th Infantry Regiment following the D-Day invasion during World War II.

The World War II Victory Medal and the Bronze Star.

Dale Lingelbach’s story is already featured in Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation.”

On Friday, the Army posthumously awarded Lingelbach with the Bronze Star and World War II Victory Medal.

Lingelbach, a 1st lieutenant who eventually died in 1967 from skin cancer, was wounded by artillery fire on July 20, 1944, outside St. Lo, France. He landed on Utah Beach less than a week after D-Day.

“Dale took part in one of the most critical operations in the Second World War during the European theater of operations,” said Col. Tim Reese, chief of staff for the Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.

Reese presented the medals to Lingelbach’s widow, Scottie Lingelbach, during a ceremony at the Dole Institute of Politics.

“One of the tenets of the Soldier’s Creed is to never leave a soldier behind,” said Capt. Aaron Cornett, of the Kansas University Army ROTC. “And we never forget that oath.”

Dale Lingelbach was a 1944 KU graduate. Fort Leavenworth’s Combined Arms Center along with the Dole Institute and KU’s Army and Navy ROTC programs presented the medals on Friday.

Reese and Scottie Lingelbach pinned the medals on Dale’s uniform as dozens of ROTC cadets and midshipmen and about 30 friends, family and guests, including several World War II veterans, looked on.

“It’s most impressive to be among these heroes, and I’m touched by that,” said Scottie Lingelbach, also a KU grad who is featured in Brokaw’s book for her handling of secret information during the war while serving in the Navy’s Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.

She worked with Sen. Pat Roberts and his staff to get the Army to award the medals. It took Dale Lingelbach two years to recover from his injuries, and he would have lost his leg if it weren’t for a surgery that was uncommon at the time.

After the ceremony, Scottie, an 88-year-old Lawrence resident, said her husband accepted his Purple Heart likely while he was still in the hospital with other Wounded Warriors and not much fanfare.

He served as a machine gun platoon leader with Company M, 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division. Once he healed from his wounds, Lingelbach later worked for General Electric and became vice president of sales for Smith Brothers, a work clothes manufacturer in Carthage, Mo., before he died in 1967 at the age of 45.

“They did their job because that’s what the Greatest Generation did,” Reese said. “You went to war. You came back, and you started your life anew.”

Scottie said her husband likely wouldn’t have made a big deal out of the medals, but she said it was a great ceremony for his friends and family.

“It does impress you that they don’t forget anybody,” she said. “And this has been a lot of years.”