At the end of World War II, after he had served in a hospital in New Guinea caring for Americans wounded in fighting in the Philippines, Charles Wolf didn’t really care to get the medals he was due.
The Army corporal, who was 20 when he went into the service in 1943, was more interested in going home to New York.
But seven decades after the war ended, the now 92-year-old Wolf was surprised at the USS Arizona Memorial visitor center Friday with the presentation of his long-overdue service medals by a one-star general.
His daughter, Jill Eilert, set it up in advance and coupled it with a family vacation to Hawaii and her father’s first trip to Pearl Harbor.
“They sat me down over there, and all of a sudden they say they are here to honor Charles Wolf. I was very much surprised,” the former GI said.
The five medals were presented in a shadow box by Brig. Gen. Mark Spindler, deputy director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. They included the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign medal, the Philippine Liberation Ribbon, the World War II Victory Medal and even Wolf’s Good Conduct Medal.
After all the hoopla died down a bit, the now-New Jersey resident finally got to see his medals.
“It feels terrific, but I didn’t even look at them yet. So I want to see what they are,” he said. “Wow, the Philippines liberate one,” he added after a quick examination. “I tried to contact them about it once, and they told me they didn’t have enough money to make the medals.”
Wolf was drafted in 1943, attended medical corps training and was assigned to the 54th General Hospital in New Guinea, where he helped hundreds of service members by changing their bandage dressings, cleaning up the wounded and performing other medical technician duties.
He was on a ship heading for the Philippines when the atomic bombs were dropped. From the Philippines he was sent to Tokyo. From there he shipped to the West Coast and then took a train home.
“We knew we had to do a job, and we did it. That’s it,” Wolf said of his service to the country.
His daughter thought that her father should at least get the medals he was due.
“On his discharge papers it listed all of his medals. But I asked him, ‘Where are the physical medals?’ and he said, ‘I never got them,’” Eilert said. So she contacted lawmakers who helped make the award possible.
“It seemed important to me that he should get his medals,” she said. “I mean, I run a 5K race, I come in third, I get a big medal. My kid’s in soccer, he comes home with a big trophy. You need these physical reminders of what you’ve done.”
Six family members came out from the East Coast, and on Friday, Wolf also got to visit the Arizona Memorial for the first time before the medal presentation.
“Very, very moving,” is how the World War II veteran described the experience, which represented the start to America’s wartime involvement that Wolf helped end. “The Arizona — I almost started to cry. I’m not that type of emotional person, but it really got me when I saw all those guys that got killed at one time.”
Spindler, the general who presented the medals, said it was the “brotherhood of arms” that prompted him to take part. Wolf and many other Americans “set the conditions for who we are and what we are today, so we are in their debt,” he said.
Eilert had more personal reasons.
“It’s a great way to tell him how much we love him, and a way to thank him for being a soldier, a father, a husband, a grandfather, a friend — just a really good person,” she said.
