Receipt of POW Medals delayed for 32 years

[JJ_BPK]

About fre'kn time,,,

Receipt of POW Medals delayed for 32 years

Lost paper work causes 8-year delay of medals for six airmen held hostage by Iran in 1979
By David Larter - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Dec 3, 2011 8:54:48 EST

They’ve been waiting 32 years for this and it wasn’t easy.

It took advocates, Congress, the secretary of the Air Force, an Army major and military historian, and a determined civilian employee at the Air Force Personnel Center to get Prisoner of War Medals to six airmen who were taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979.

Lt. Col. David Roeder, Lt. Col. Thomas Schaefer, Capt. Paul Needham and Staff Sgt. James Hughes spent 444 days in captivity, and Capt. Neal “Terry” Robinson and Master Sgt. Joseph Vincent were released after 16 days.

In a Nov. 14 letter from Maj. Gen. Al Stewart, the AFPC chief, the former hostages were at last awarded the medal they had been congressionally authorized to receive more than 20 years ago.

The airmen should have received the medal but, according to a statement from the personnel center, an administrative error caused the paperwork to be lost for eight years.

Then-Air Force Secretary James Roche authorized the hostages to receive the medal in a letter dated Oct. 14, 2003.

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http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/20...-years-120311/

BHO and JEC,, what a pair...