Army calls soldier's injuries accidental, denies Purple Heart

Army calls soldier's injuries accidental
By Chris Roberts / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 08/29/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT


EL PASO -- Douglas Messer's soldier son, Charles, told his father his wounds -- a concussion, a broken arm and numerous cuts and bruises -- were suffered when his Humvee was rocked by the explosion of a roadside bomb during a combat patrol in Iraq.

Spc. Messer served with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, from Fort Bliss and had deployed with his unit to Mosul, Iraq, in late 2006. On that combat patrol in June 2007, he was manning the Humvee's .50-caliber machine gun.

The paperwork that accompanied him from Iraq through the hospital in Germany and on to Fort Bliss indicated that his wounds were combat-related, the elder Messer said.

Messer was killed Dec. 22 in a single-car accident on Loop 375 in Northeast El Paso as he headed home to see his parents in South Carolina. At his son's funeral, an Army official mentioned a Purple Heart, the father said.

Douglas Messer said he remembers that a Capt. Cleon Windham, with the Fort Bliss Warrior Transition Battalion where the younger Messer had been rehabilitating his arm, instructed him on where the medal should be pinned on the memorial flag that had covered his son's casket.

But then, in June, Douglas Messer received a phone call from the Army telling him there would be no Purple Heart.
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