By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Last month, the day after Robert Campbell celebrated his 80th birthday, he got quite a surprise in the mail: the Bronze Star and Purple Heart medals he was due 60 years ago.

"Nice birthday present," Campbell said with a chuckle.

Robert Campbell of Waikiki got a special treat for his 80th birthday with the arrival of medals he earned in World War II. Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser

The family had written many letters. The man who used to live next door was an active-duty Marine who had vowed to take up the cause before he was shipped overseas. Campbell's stepson, Patrick Valenti, has a buddy who transferred to the Pentagon and took some of the documents with him.

"I kind of was losing hope," Valenti said. "We're not sure what caused what. We just kept trying."

It was March 15, 1944. Campbell still gets choked up when he talks about what happened.

He was 20 years old, an Army private stationed at Bougainville, Solomon Islands. He was a lineman in a communications unit. An attack was planned for that day, but the enemy had cut the communication line between the command post and the field operations. It was Campbell's job to follow the wire behind enemy lines, find the break and repair the line.

"I found where it was cut, but I couldn't find the other end of it," Campbell remembered. "All of a sudden, a sniper sighted me. I slapped up my rifle and took a couple of shots. I saw him drop but I don't know if I hit him. Then his buddy fired at me. I was in the air diving for a foxhole when he got me."

The bullet went straight through his knee, from back to front.

Campbell flipped into a foxhole the way he had been taught. An American soldier saw him coming and, thinking he was the enemy, set up his bayonet. The blade pierced Campbell's shirt but slid along the side of his body.

"I looked down at the bayonet and it was sticking out of my shirt but I couldn't feel anything," said Campbell. "I wasn't even scratched. I looked up at the guy and he had passed out cold. He thought he killed me. I thought he killed me, too."

When the other soldier came to, he and Campbell assessed the situation and came up with a plan.

"We decided he would give me cover fire while I flipped out of the foxhole and went about 100 yards down the hill to the command post. And he did. He gave me good cover fire. There were spikes and snipers and I don't know how I ever made it, but I did."

At the command post, Campbell reported he had been up on the ridge. "The sergeant said, 'That's no-man's land up there.' And I said, ' Yeah, I found that out.'"

But Campbell, though shot through the leg, went back into no-man's land to fix the communications line.

"I finally found both ends of it and made a patch. The enemy had thrown away 15 to 20 feet of it, but we always carried Assalt wire to use as a patch, so I used that."

With battlefield communication restored, the American forces went forward with their attack.

"The battle was good. Let's say they kicked the hell out of them. That's the polite expression," Campbell said.

While at the aid station, Campbell was injured again, though he didn't realize it until much later. There were mortars exploding close by. "Several months later," Campbell said, " I was taking a shower and I heard this sound, this tinkling sound. I looked down and it was shrapnel falling out of me."

Campbell was just 15 years old when he entered the service, joining the National Guard. He was the fourth-oldest of nine children in a Clinton, Ill., farming family. He grew up during the Depression, he said, and he and two friends decided to hitchhike to California to look for work. "We stopped at a National Guard Armory to fortify ourselves with Cokes and candy bars. The recruiter told me, 'You look like you could pass for 18.' So we all three signed up."

He later was inducted into the Army on March 5, 1941, and honorably discharged on July 28, 1945. He still has his original discharge papers, brown and brittle with age. Under the section "Decorations and citations" it reads:

Purple Heart medal

Bronze Star medal

Asiatic-Pacific Theater Ribbon with two bronze battle stars.

The Purple Heart is for wounds in action. The Bronze Star is for gallantry.

The package that arrived last month also came with an American Campaign medal, a Victory in World War II medal and a Good Conduct medal.

Campbell isn't sure why his medals weren't automatically given to him when he was discharged or why they weren't sent out years later after his family and others started asking for them on his behalf. But he's not mad.

"Angry doesn't get you anything," he says. "If you're angry, that nullifies your fighting ability."

Numerous calls to Army public information officials in Washington about Campbell's case were not returned. But local Army spokesperson Pat Simoes of Schofield said it is common for the Army to send out "replacement medals" to veterans.

For years after leaving the battlefield, Campbell had nightmares. He remembers getting dressed up for a date and walking into town. "A car backfired and I jumped into a ditch. I had to go back home and change my clothes." He remembers waking from a bad dream and jumping into the closet. Gradually, that sort of thing faded.

"Of course you think about it, but this is probably more than I've thought about it in years."

After the war, Campbell worked as a truck driver, a welder, a cook — "basically two or three jobs at a time to survive." He later became an air marshal and retired after a career as a special agent for the U.S. Customs Service.

Campbell looked over the collection of medals his wife had spread out on the dining room table. Granddaughter Kryn, who is just starting to talk, reached across the table to touch the bar of ribbons with her small fingers.

"That's my whole story," Campbell said. He started to mist up again.

"Were we afraid? Sure. All the time. But basically you realize you've got a job to do and no matter how afraid you are, the job is more important."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.