Marine Vietnam Vet receives Bronze Star because buddies cared

Aside from spending over half my life surrounded by Vietnam veterans, this is one example of why I adore them as much as I do. Think of the kind of commitment they have for each other that a reunion in Orlando Florida made sure that a Vietnam veteran from Dorchester Massachusetts received the honor he earned so long ago for his actions as a teenager in combat.

Corporal Paul R. Moore, then 19, was shot in the right cheek. Unable to speak, he sketched the enemy's position on paper.

Marine from Dorchester receives long-awaited honor
Aided battalion after he was shot; gets Bronze Star

By Kathy McCabe
Globe Staff / May 31, 2009
From behind thick brush, they fired machine guns at Marines positioned in rice paddies near a river in South Vietnam.

Feb. 12, 1970, was a long and bloody day for the men of Bravo Company of the Seventh Marines.

Corporal Paul R. Moore of Dorchester, then 19 years old and only 10 days' married, crawled through fields to carry dead and wounded comrades to the safety of a tree line. The North Vietnamese Army kept firing, and Moore was struck by a bullet in his right cheek. Unable to speak, he sketched the enemy's position on paper.

"He stayed alive, and lived to tell us where to find the enemy," said Ron Ambort, a retired Marine lieutenant. "It's a day I'll never forget."

The honor was bestowed five years after his loyal comrades decided to right a wrong. At a Marine reunion in Orlando in 2004, Moore's friends realized his had never been officially recognized.
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Marine from Dorchester receives long-awaited honor