Robert Hitchcock on Monday received medals for his bravery and combat wounds 49 years ago.

Robert Hitchcock receives military medals from U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot as his daughter Sharon Smith and son Anthony Hitchcock look on. (Dick Swaim photos) | ZOOM |

Hitchcock's medals (Dick Swaim photos) | ZOOM |

        U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Cincinnati, presented the Bronze Star and Purple Heart in his Carew Tower office.

        He also gave Mr. Hitchcock overdue National Defense, Korean and U.N. Service Medals and a replacement Combat Infantryman Badge.

        “It's a long time coming,” said Mr. Hitchcock, 71, of South Fairmount.

        He pursued the missing medals so he could give them to his Vietnam veteran son, Anthony, of Mount Healthy.

        Mr. Hitchcock joined the Army at 19 in 1949. A private in C Company of the 17th Infantry Regiment, he was wounded by grenade and mortar fragments in 1952.

        “It was a stalemate by then,” he recalled. He first was wounded trying to take Hill 303 in what is now the Demilitarized Zone separating North Korea and South Korea.

        Both sides wanted the high ground for the inevitable end of fighting, he said. His unit reached the top but “we got knocked off.”

        A second wound came when a shell exploded in his trench.

        A year earlier, his older brother, Velmon Hitchcock, had been killed in Korea.

        Mr. Chabot's office intervened when Mr. Hitchcock said the government was unresponsive to his requests for the medals.

        Since leaving the service in 1952, Mr. Hitchcock has worked for the U.S. Postal Service, city of Cincinnati and University Club, where he remains a part-time waiter.

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