Arkansans To Receive Purple Hearts
By: Import User
Updated: January 7, 2009
Three Arkansans are among five soldiers
from the 39th Infantry Brigade who`ve been awarded Purple Hearts
for wounds sustained during hostile action.
The brigade is a unit of the Arkansas National Guard,
headquartered at Little Rock, before it was summoned for active
duty last fall and deployed to Iraq in February and March.
All of those who received Purple Hearts on Tuesday are already
back patrolling the streets of Baghdad. More than two dozen Purple
Hearts have gone to members of the brigade altogether, but most
were awarded to soldiers in hospital beds -- or after they had
died.
Arkansans decorated are Staff Sergeant Kenneth Jones of Dumas,
Specialist George Burton of Wynne and Specialist Mindale Davis of
Magnolia.
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Most of those wounded were hit with shrapnel from either a
roadside bomb or a mortar round.
Since the brigade`s arrival in Iraq, 13 soldiers from the 39th
have died -- eight from Arkansas, four from Oregon and one from
Connecticut.
