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Name;                          Walter David Ehlers

 

Rank:                           2nd Lieutenant

 

Branch of Service:        Army of the United States (AUS)

 

Unit:                               3rd. Infantry Division, Morocco, 1st Infantry Division, Sicily,   and 1st Infantry Division, Normandy.

 

Specialty:                      Combat Infantryman

 

Active Duty Dates:        October 1940 to October 1945

 

Reserve Dates:             None

 

Armed Conflicts:           WWII

 

Campaigns:                   Morocco,  North Africa, Sicily, Omaha Beach, France and the Rhineland, Germany

 

Decorations & Awards:

                                   

Awarded Presidential Unit Citation for action at El Guitar in North Africa.

Awarded Bronze Star for Valor, D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Awarded Congressional Medal of Honor 9 & 10 June 1944 for action in Normandy, France.

Another Bronze Star during the Normandy campaign.

Awarded three Purple Heart medals, two for action in Normandy, and one in Germany.

Received the Silver Star Medal for action in Germany.

French Croix de Guerre and Belgium Croix de Guerre.

Two more Presidential Unit Citations.

Combat Infantry Badge.

England’s King George military medal; German Occupational medal;

European Theater Campaign medal with silver star and two bronze stars clusters with V-device.

American Defense medal, American Campaign medal, WWII Victory medal.

Combat Infantry Badge and given a battlefield commission to 2nd Lieutenant.

Knighted by the Belgium Government with a King Leopold medal, March 1966.

Received the French Legion of Honor, May 2002

 

Speaking Subjects:  “The Combat Infantryman”

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