August 28, 2013
Letter to the Editor
The Spokesman-Review
P.O .Box 2160
Spokane, WA 99201

Sirs,

I would like to think Delbert “Shorty” Belton, the 89 year old Purple Heart winner who was beaten to death by 3 teenage punks, served on Okinawa with my wife Amy’s uncle, Corporal Leonard Putnam.
For 16 years I have sent out reminders of him every May 25th. He and Aunt Millie had no children. Even though the “whole earth is sepulcher of famous men” my annual notices keep his name alive.
The Presidential citation reads “he died in the Pacific area on May 25th, 1945”. Further, it says “he lives in a way that humbles the undertakings of most men”.
Corporal Putnam was a 41 year old piano salesman from Jersey City, New Jersey, serving on Okinawa.. A Japanese mortar shell blew away his upper right torso. He was dead before he could blink.
Shorty Belton, another Purple Heart winner, did not have the luxury of a quick, clean soldier’s death. 3 feral thugs beat him and stomped him. There is some indication that he fought back. They then finished the task.
What with today’s logistics, a word that had never been heard in 1945, I suppose I could find out if he served in the same platoon as Corporal Putnam. I shant.
Why not imagine that on some mess line on Okinawa he was the “kid” and Corporal Putnam was the “old man”? Who is to say that they didn’t eat the same dirt on more than one occasion? Maybe had a smoke and told lies to each other, as men do.
Suffice to say that after 68 years, 2 warriors have come to the same place. Both have now come home, on their shields, honorably, as all warriors should.
“How are you doing, kid? I hope you had a good life.”



Kevin Smith