Some 11 years after their father's death, sisters Charlotte Garlington and J.J. Walker on Wednesday finally received the military medals their father earned but never got.
When World War II ended, George Anderson returned to the U.S. from Asia without the medals he earned as a combat engineer. For the rest of his life, he was reluctant to discuss the war, and he never pursued the medals once he was stateside.
Garlington, Walker and another sister -- who lives in Texas and was unable to attend Wednesday's ceremony in Little Rock -- discovered their father's military records in a safe-deposit box several years ago after their mother's death. The discovery began a prolonged effort, with the help of U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton's staff, to obtain those medals.
On Wednesday, Cotton, a Republican from Dardanelle, presented Anderson's family with the long-awaited awards.
"We know how wonderful he was," Walker said of her father. "Now we get to show people what we already knew."
Anderson's situation wasn't uncommon. World War II -- especially in the Pacific Theater where Anderson served -- ended quickly. Cotton said Wednesday that "millions of soldiers" were sent home in the weeks after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, returning without the decorations they had earned.
"In Iraq and Afghanistan, we were deploying in a more orderly, expected fashion," said Cotton, a former soldier himself. "So 60 to 90 days out, you could work through the administrative process to make sure everybody received the actual medals not just the piece of paper that says they deserved them.
"But in the chaotic days after [Victory in Europe] and [Victory in Japan] Day, we've found it wasn't unusual for veterans to come home without their medals."
Anderson's Good Conduct Medal, Meritorious Unit Commendation, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Philippine Liberation Ribbon and Honorable Service Lapel Button WWII are the latest of the more than 300 medals Cotton's staff has acquired for veterans or their families since he took office in 2015.
Cotton encouraged any veterans or families of veterans to contact his office about service members missing medals.
Anderson, a Black Rock native, never received more than an eighth-grade education, his daughters said, but he owned and operated several service stations and car washes in Little Rock throughout his life.
At age 22, he enlisted in the Army and spent nearly 3½ years deployed during World War II as a combat engineer.
"He could build anything," Garlington said.
A member of the 101st Airborne, Anderson descended into the war zone on a combat glider, the U.S.' first stealth aircraft, which silently flew into World War II "powered only by the prevailing winds and the guts of the men who flew them," according to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Nicknamed "flying coffins," manning the gliders was among the deadliest jobs in the war.
"It's so crazy they stopped doing it," Cotton quipped Wednesday.
Combat took a toll on Anderson, his daughters said, and that's one of the reasons having his decorations will be so satisfying.
"We knew that World War II really hurt his heart," Garlington said. "He just would not talk about it because of all the battles that went on. It just kind of broke him there for a while, we believe."
Still, Anderson's daughters remember him as a jokester. In the lobby at Cotton's office, they recalled story after story of small pranks he played on them and their boyfriends.
They suspect that he'd have been proud to have received the long-overdue medals, but he'd have also been humble and slightly embarrassed, Walker said.
Anderson's family is still working to get several other medals he earned from the Army. Then, Garlington plans to frame them and pass them down in the family for generations to come.
"He fought for the freedom we have nowadays," she said. "If we don't stand up and fight for freedom like my father did, we won't have it."
Metro on 08/24/2017