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War Heroes · The Decoration Record
This section holds Mishawaka's decoration record: the men and women the official record itself decorated, and the acts as the citations state them. It is a thinner record than the city's roll of dead, and it is printed at its true size. The summit test stands negative, as the halls-of-fame pass found it. Beneath it, the verified record holds one Distinguished Service Cross, a small company of Silver Stars — two of them earned in the air in the first months of 1945, one earned in a prison camp — a Distinguished Flying Cross with Combat "V" awarded for a mission that ended in capture, and a Purple Heart carried home by the city's one dead airman of the wars after 2001. The First World War's roll, read whole for every Mishawaka name on it, records no decoration for any of them, and the file prints that silence as the finding it is. The women of the record were tested the same way, and the result is printed whole. What belongs here is the decoration and the act as the citation states it; the rolls of the dead belong to the Wars section, and the lives belong to People.
The summit test: no Medal of Honor
The test, restated
The test and its result: No Medal of Honor recipient is credited to Mishawaka — by birth, by entered service, or by burial — in the Congressional Medal of Honor Society's rolls or the state recipient lists read for this build.…
Willis Uline: the commendation of 1898
1 July 1898
The officer: Willis Uline was a Mishawaka High School graduate of the class of 1884 and a West Point graduate of 1890 who made the Regular Army his career. In the war with Spain he was a first lieutenant of the 12th Infantry…
The First World War: the roll records no decoration
1917 – 1918
The roll read whole: Joseph County section of the Indiana Gold Star Honor Roll of 1921, entire, for every Mishawaka man who stands on it with a full record — Busschaert, Fullerton, Gehring, Oppelt, Richter, Shelton, Snyder, and…
Morris Dean LaVine: a Silver Star, missing in action
20 January 1945
The man and the tie: Morris Dean LaVine was born at Mishawaka and entered active duty from Mishawaka — both statements stand in the Army's own award-card record, transcribed from the National Archives' award cards. He was a first…
Thair W. Best: shot down on his forty-fifth mission
22 January 1945
The tie, stated exactly: Thair W. Best was born at Pomeroy, Iowa, on 7 November 1921. Mishawaka was his home: his obituary is headed from Mishawaka, his family was of the city, and his war was flown from it in every way but the…
Warren E. Henke: buried here, decorated, his home unproven
1923 – 2020
What the federal record states: The Department of Veterans Affairs' Veterans Legacy Memorial carries a page for Warren E. Henke, an Army veteran of the Second World War, born 13 December 1923 and died 19 July 2020. The page lists…
Dan Dzierla: a Silver Star as the newspaper reported it
The Philippines, 1944 – 1945; reported 2002
Reported, not verified: This entry is printed under the house rule for its class, and the distinction is stated before the claim: the decoration below is reported by a newspaper feature and has not been verified against the award…
William J. Kelly: the service decorations of a career
1943 – 1983
At pointer strength: William J. Kelly of Mishawaka — born here in 1922, a Ball Band town boy who enlisted as a B-24 ball-turret gunner, was commissioned in 1950, and retired in 1983 as a major general — carries his full life in…
Ralph S. Gustin: the Distinguished Service Cross at Haman
11 August 1950
The city's cross: The Distinguished Service Cross is the Army's second-highest decoration for valor, and Mishawaka's verified decoration record holds one. It belongs to First Lieutenant Ralph S. Gustin, a platoon leader of…
Korea's other Mishawaka dead: no decoration record reached
1951 – 1953
The test: Gustin is the Korean War's one verified Mishawaka decoration. The city's other proven Korean War dead, whose deaths stand in the Wars section — Second Lieutenant Edwin F. Tabaczynski of the Air Force, lost 20 August…
Richard C. Brenneman: the fullest record the city holds
8 November 1967 – 14 March 1973
The man: Richard Charles Brenneman was born at Mishawaka on 25 March 1942, graduated from Mishawaka High School in 1960, and became an Air Force fighter pilot. The Hall of Valor's header carries the tie in its two plainest words…
Vietnam's wider record: one reported Silver Star, and the sixteen
1965 – 1975
Reported at index strength: Beyond Brenneman, the Vietnam decoration record holds one name, and it is printed at the strength it reached — reported, not verified. The St. Joseph County veterans index carries a row for Gary J.…
Ryan A. Balmer: the Purple Heart of the later wars
5 June 2007
The record: Technical Sergeant Ryan A. Balmer of Mishawaka, an Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent of Detachment 113, was killed at Kirkuk, Iraq, on 5 June 2007 — the post-2001 wars' only Mishawaka dead, whose death…
The women of the record: tested, and the result printed whole
1917 – 1988
The test and its result: The women of Mishawaka's decoration record were tested as the men were — in the award registers, in the county's rolls, and in the county veterans index — and the result is negative at the record's…
How the city has honored them: the commemorations, tested
1883 – 2017
The test: This section's last subject is the honor the city itself has paid, tested like the decorations. The brief form of the question — are there streets, schools, or buildings in Mishawaka named for the decorated of record? …
The limits of this record
What the searches reached, and what would settle the rest
The limit, stated plainly: Decorations are the least completely published part of the military record. The Medal of Honor is published entire, and this section's summit test is therefore a true negative. Below that height the…