Saturday, April 08, 2000
Purple Heart chapter started
Group based on west side
BY LEW MOORES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
CHEVIOT — A chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart is being formed in this city to tap into what organizers believe is a mother lode of military veterans on the west side who have received the award.
The organization is open only to veterans who have received the Purple Heart, which is awarded to veterans who have been wounded in combat.
Tim Culbertson, a Vietnam veteran who was wounded in battle in 1969, is forming the group, called the Cheviot-Western Hills chapter.
“Western Hills area has a strong veterans following,” Mr. Culbertson said. He bases his assessment on the number of veterans organizations there.
Response to recruitment efforts by the Cincinnati chapter of the order proved so successful, Mr. Culbertson said, that he thought there was room enough to have two chapters in the area. The Cincinnati chapter, which meets in Hartwell, has about 100 members.
Mr. Culbertson thought a chapter based on the west side would make the organization more accessible to veterans living on that side of town.
He has 15 dues-paying members for the new chapter; 12 are needed to charter a separate chapter. Three of them have signed up in the past week, Mr. Culbertson said.
“I just started this chapter three weeks ago and have 15 already,” Mr. Culbertson said.
No one has a handle on just how many Purple Heart recipients may live in the area. But Mike Mac Call, state commander of the order, based in Columbus, believes the number could be substantial.
“Cincinnati is loaded with veterans down there,” said Mr. Mac Call, who is commander in a state with 25 Purple Heart chapters and 1,600 members. Nationally, there are 32,000 members; it is estimated there are more than 600,000 living recipients.
But he estimates there are 5,000 to 6,000 Purple Heart recipients in the state, and a large proportion of them are probably in the Cincinnati area, north to Hamilton and east to Portsmouth.
“In the central Ohio area we probably have 2,500,” Mr. Mac Call said. “In the Cincinnati area there are probably more than that. There might be enough to sustain even three chapters.”
Mr. Culbertson's membership is made up of nine World War II Purple Heart recipients and six Vietnam veterans.
The new chapter will meet next at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the AMVETS hall, 3620 Harrison Ave., Cheviot. The group will meet at the hall on the second Tuesday each month.
Mr. Culbertson plans to have the chapter participate in this year's Memorial Day parade in Cheviot; he has even secured a military-style vehicle to transport some of the members down Harrison Avenue.
He also wants to name the chapter for a woman from the Canton area who was a nurse during the Vietnam War when she killed during a mortar attack. He said he needs to get permission from the woman's family, whom he is trying to locate.
TO JOIN
Wite to Mr. Culbertson at P.O. Box 58272, Cincinnati 45258.
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