Vietnam Veteran Receives Purple Heart after 51 Years
Associated Press | Sep 03, 2016 | by Kathy Aney
PENDLETON, Ore. -- Decades after a helicopter blade struck Ron Esselstyn's head, he finally received his Purple Heart.
The Pendleton soldier almost died 51 years ago in Vietnam at age 22 after an Army helicopter carrying him and other soldiers landed in a rice paddy and Esselstyn hopped out. When a Viet Cong sniper popped up from the weeds, the soldier jumped off balance into the chopper's moving tail rotor. The blade hit with such force that it mashed part of Esselstyn's fiberglass helmet into his brain, the East Oregonian reported.
His parents got a telegram calling their son's prognosis "guarded." When he awoke, speech eluded him. His doctors suspected he would never walk again.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/09/03/vietnam-veteran-receives-purple-heart-51-years.html
