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Team Sergeant

02-18-2008, 08:46

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Team Sergeant

Hidden heroes living among us

Vietnam veteran and three-time Purple Heart recipient Jack Roberts gets a big hug from Tristan Robbs, 10, and a greeting from his friend Shawn Page, 11, at 28th Avenue and 20th Street in Greeley, where Roberts is a crossing guard. Tristan said that he looks forward to seeing Roberts every day after school and respects the fact he was a war hero.
JIM RYDBOM / jrydbom@greeleytribune.com
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Mike Peters, (Bio) mpeters@greeleytribune.com
February 18, 2008

Don't even ask.

They won't talk about it. They won't brag or boast of tell of their great adventure.

They are a hidden heroes, the soldiers who won the medals, paid a price, then came home to a different life.

This is about one of them, but you'll have a hard time getting Jack Roberts to talk about the three Purple Hearts he won, or the Silver Star or the Bronze Star or any of the dozen medals that fill a drawer in the basement of his home.

There are many medal winners around Greeley and Colorado who keep silent about their experiences. Many of them are winners of the Purple heart.

"It's the medal nobody wants to win," said Greeley attorney Bill Suhre, a retired Army colonel and also a winner of the Purple Heart. "Sometimes the military service is so personal and exclusive, people at home can't relate to war. The soldiers know some people will never understand."

For some medal winners -- like Jack Roberts -- it has to do with how they were treated when they came home. Roberts was a Green Beret in Vietnam, won the dozen medals and came home at last. "In 1971, as I was walking off the plane and back in America," Roberts said, "two people spit on me.

http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20080218/NEWS/641293084