The act of heroism that earned Pfc. Floyd Doerflein a Silver Star took place 57 years and three months ago on a bloody field in France. The Silver Star came Monday.

        It arrived in a velvet box, delivered by a congressman, to Mr. Doerflein's graveside.

Kathy Helphinstine, daughter of Floyd Doerfleion, holds a silver medal and a portrait of her mother and father at her father's grave site. (Steven M. Herppich photos) | ZOOM |

        “Dad is looking down on this, and he's happy,” said Janet Zimmerman of Bridgetown, one of Mr. Doerflein's 10 children, as she stood on the wind-swept hillside of Crown Hill Cemetery's Veterans Garden at noon.

        U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, presented the medal to the children of the soldier, whose commander recommended the Silver Star for a 20-year-old private in the summer of 1944. The medal was not issued until September, when Mr. Chabot's office intervened.

        Mr. Doerflein died in July. His wife, Jean, died two days before Christmas last year.

        The ceremony — attended by about 20 sons, daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren — came after a frustrating several years of battling the military bureaucracy.

        “Mom worked on getting this medal; and, after she died, my sisters and I worked on it,” said Mrs. Kathleen Helphenstein, a daughter. “We couldn't get anything done until we called Congressman Chabot's office.”

David Doerflein and his sister Janet Zimmerman comfort each other at their father's grave site. | ZOOM |

        The Doerflein family's frustration is shared by thousands of American families who are seeking recognition for their loved ones or trying to track down information on family members in the military.

        On Aug. 10, 1944, Pfc. Doerflein, of the 331st Infantry Battalion, 83rd Division, was advancing with Company L when they were halted by heavy German machine-gun fire.

        Pfc. Doerflein crawled more than 200 yards under intense fire until he was able to find a spot where he could fire rifle grenades into the enemy machine-gun nest, taking it out.

        His commander issued a citation for bravery and recommended him for the Silver Star — the third-highest military honor Congress bestows — but the decades came and went while Mr. Doerflein raised his family in College Hill and the medal was never issued.

        His act of heroism, it turned out, had literally gone up in smoke in a St. Louis warehouse 27 years ago. A 1973 fire at a military records center in St. Louis destroyed more than 16 million documents on American military veterans, said Chabot aide Michael Harlow.

        Mrs. Zimmerman said one of her sisters saw a news report in August of Mr. Chabot's office untangling the red tape for a living World War II veteran and called the congressman's office for help.

        Within two weeks, the medal was issued.

        But it was too late for the award to be made personally to the man who earned it; he had died in July, buried beside of wife of almost 55 years.

        The family gathered at the cemetery to hear Mr. Chabot describe their father as “a hero in every sense of the word.”

        Afterward, Mrs. Zimmerman passed the velvet box from one family member to another and talked of how proud her father would have been.

        “He never talked about the war, not until towards the end,” she said. “He had seen the horrors of it. But he did what he had to do.”

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