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By BEN McNEELY Mid-South News Service
Mt. Airy News

It’s been 60 years since Earl Walter Adkins was in the U.S. Navy. After serving on a mine sweeper near The Philippines in the Pacific Ocean during World War II, Adkins left the Navy in 1946 and never thought about getting the medals he deserved for his service. Now, after work on his behalf by his grandson, Darren Morgan, and U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx’s office, Adkins has his medals. “My grandson urged me to do it,” Adkins, 80, said. “I said that I never had gotten around to doing it. He said, ‘Well, never mind then.’” But what Adkins didn’t know was that Morgan had already contacted Foxx’s Clemmons office about the medals. After they arrived, Morgan told him, “‘You earned them, you go get them,’” Adkins said. In her district office in Clemmons, Rep. Foxx presented Adkins with his medals: the World War II American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, Navy Occupation Service Medal, Honorable Service Lapel Pin and a Discharge Button.

“Some of these veterans don’t ask for the medals that they have earned,” Foxx said, “and many get out of the service owed medals because they are too modest to ask.”

Foxx said many of the requests she gets come from the veteran’s families. From there, the office staff helps the families gather the necessary paperwork and credentials to submit to the Department of Defense.

“It is amazing what good records the military has, so when they do get requests they can fulfill them,” Foxx said.

Adkins served on wooden minesweeper.

“It was made out of tongue-in-groove two-by- sixes,” he remarked.

“We’d find the mines and bring them to the surface,” he continued. “Then a fellow on an anti-aircraft gun would shoot them and detonate them.”

Foxx also presented medals to Leon Clem of Statesville, who served in the Korean War. Clem said many people don’t remember the Korean war like other wars.

“They call it ‘The Forgotten War,’ but it is not forgotten,” Clem said. “It is history. It happened.”

Foxx remarked, “Many people only know about Korean War by what they have seen on M*A*S*H.”

Clem received the Purple Heart, two Korean Service medals, Combat Infantry Badge, United Nations Service medal and a Cold War Recognition certificate signed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

PHOTO CAPTION:
Earl Adkins of Walnut Cove speaks to Rep. Virginia Foxx, right, about his service in World War II after she presented him with medals he earned more than 60 years ago.

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