Ed Porter earned his Silver Star in a hellish moment on a French battlefield 67 years ago.
Nazis leveled an anti-aircraft gun on Porter’s squad of armored tank destroyers, blowing up one of them. One wounded soldier survived and sought to return fire against German machine guns. Bullets pounded his position in the blasted vehicle.
Porter knew his buddy wouldn't live long under the onslaught. He told another soldier to give him cover fire and he raced to his injured friend across an open field.
Porter came back with his fellow soldier on his shoulder. He can't say how the enemy missed him.
The Germans "could've killed me," Porter, 90, remembered from his Puyallup home last week. "Maybe they thought, 'Oh, hell, he’s saving one of his comrades. That’s what I would’ve done.' "
Nearly seven decades later, Porter exudes pride when he remembers fighting from Normandy to just west of Berlin with Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army. ("A hell of a general," he calls Patton.)
His tour on the European Front is the stuff from which Steven Spielberg movies are made.
Now Porter wants to help other veterans get the public recognition they deserve for their wartime accomplishments.
He's behind an effort in the Legislature to craft new license plate decals for veterans that would let them display their military honors, such as the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star and the Bronze Star.
Porter, a former Army staff sergeant and retired Tacoma police officer, had a hand-made sticker of his Silver Star that he kept on his car for years. It started conversations with other veterans and civilians who wanted to recognize his service.
Currently, only Medal of Honor and Purple Heart recipients can obtain special license plates for their distinguished military service. More veterans deserve a chance to display their decorations, says Rep. Hans Zeiger, R-Puyallup, who sponsored a bill to carry out Porter’s idea.
"Every day those who serve or have served our country and protected our great nation walk among us. Yet, we don’t always know who they are. This bill is an opportunity to recognize our heroes,” Zeiger said
Zeiger met Porter several years ago. The old soldier presented Zeiger with a mock-up showing how the state might create emblems for military honors.
House Bill 2312 would call on the Department of Licensing to sell the emblems to veterans if they can show proof they’ve earned the medals. The state would charge enough to cover the cost of production, and any extra revenue would be steered to veterans programs, Zeiger said.
He says it’s important to produce the emblems not only for Porter’s generation, but also for the ranks of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans settling in Washington.
Porter received a Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest military honor, for his actions on Nov. 12, 1944. The commendation for the medal praises him for putting his own life on the line to save another’s.
By that time, Porter had fought for five months through France, sometimes in advanced units at Patton’s side. He’d lose dozens of pounds in the siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944. The following spring, he’d join American soldiers in uncovering the Ohrduf and Buchenwald concentration camps.
He was done fighting in May 1945 when the Germans surrendered. He passed on an opportunity to move to the Pacific front, and instead showed that he’d earned enough service points to go home to his wife, Maxine, and the first of their three children.
Maxine learned her husband would soon be home when the June 12, 1945, edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published a group of Associated Press photos from New York. They showed soldiers from Washington and Oregon arriving in the states.
The headline read, “Troops happy on train headed west.” A grinning Porter is in one picture, helping another soldier haul a rucksack off a ship from France.
The Porters say Ed didn’t talk much about the war for about 20 years. Maxine remembered him sitting up in the middle of the night, alert but not speaking.
Something changed in his 40s, and he embraced his memories.
Soon, he would get that Silver Star emblem and place it on his car to let even strangers know he served with distinction in Patton's army.
Adam Ashton: 253-597-8646
adam.ashton@thenewstribune.com
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