Where's my Purple Heart?

Jack wrote:

I had a wound over my eyebrow which required six stitches while serving
in Viet Nam and I didn't get a purple heart.

Don't feel bad - a friend was the only WCS troop in the
world known to have cut off his own nose at DaNang - during
what he thought was a rocket attack - and no purple heart,
either.

He had just arrived from CONUS - a FNG, if there ever was
one. He sat through the in-processing brief about what to
when the rockets came - and was led to an upper bunk in the
AMS barracks, where he crashed. (After a 22-hour flight
from Travis, and six more hours of "welcome".)

No sooner than he had gone to sleep, the siren went off.
Tom came out of that bunk on the run - completely forgetting
he was five feet above the floor. On the way down, he saw
the reflector of a tall floor lamp quickly approaching his
face - and couldn't avoid it. It took off his nose, leaving
it attached by a small flap of skin at one side.

The medics sat him in a chair, and gave him a local anesthetic,
but started right in sewing it back on - before the numbing
agent took effect. He'd jump, squirm, and complain with each
poke.

At one point, the Doc told him to just shut up and "take it"
- or he'd sew it back on upside-down, and he'd never be able
to go out in the rain again...

He doesn't complain though; the Frankenstein scars across the
bridge of his nose are sure to invite a "There I was..."
response at the club, any time. But no Purple Heart.