Nearly 53 years after saving a Navy plane crew from an icy death off the Aleutian Islands, Leo Land of Haines, a former Army infantryman, has received a brand new Bronze Star Medal.
As he did with the original in the 1980s, Land is donating the medal back to the government as part of an ongoing campaign for better treatment of veterans.
His original Bronze Star was awarded in 1946 for a search-and-rescue mission during a fierce storm near Adak Island three years earlier, during World War II. He was asked by a Navy admiral to volunteer for the mission because he was familiar with the island, he said. He was accompanied by only one other man, who has since died.
The Bronze Star apparently was stolen from the state Capitol office of the governor, where it had been on display since the Sheffield administration, along with a plaque urging greater attention to the needs of veterans.
Land learned of the theft recently when he asked Gov. Tony Knowles to take the medal to President Clinton for display in the White House. A new medal was presented to Land in Juneau Friday by Gen. Jake Lestenkof, state commissioner of military and veterans affairs.
Land left the medal in Juneau with State Rep. Pete Kott, R-Eagle River. U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, who will address the legislature next week, has pledged to pick it up and approach Clinton about a White House display, Land said.
Although Land has written to the president about it, Clinton never responded, he said. “He’ll accept it – you know that. It’d be dynamite if he didn’t; the veterans organizations would be on him for sure.”
Land has been upset for years with “loopholes” in federal law that deny veterans lifetime medical care.
He said he wishes there could be courts martial for members of Congress who vote to cut veterans’ benefits.