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Pinned to a strip of black velvet, his medals hang in his room at the Tomah VA Medical Center, his home for the past three years.
He’s modest. There’s no medal of honor, the 90-year-old Tweed said with a wink.
But his decorations are there to see, next to pictures of his sons, Tom and John, taken decades ago when they were young men.
There’s a combat infantryman’s badge, and the medals given to the men who fought in the European theater during World War II. There’s a Bronze Star, awarded for heroism in combat, and a Purple Heart.
That was the one Tweed earned 64 years ago today when he was shot by a German soldier.
Back then, Tweed was a 26-year-old soldier from Osseo, Wis. On July 22, 1944, after training in Wales, his 28th Infantry Division landed at Normandy, the beachhead that had been taken a few weeks earlier.
They fought their way south, helping to liberate Paris, where they paraded down the Champs Elysees on Aug. 29.
“I’m in there,” Tweed said, pointing to a historic photo of troops marching in front of the Arc de Triomphe.
From there, the fighting got tough. The 28th attacked the heavily fortified Siegfried Line, where traps thwarted the tanks and German soldiers waited in concrete bunkers.
The division — whose red keystone shoulder patch and fierce reputation earned them the nickname “bloody bucket” — pushed on. Tweed’s regiment was the first to cross into Germany.
Tweed has a yearbook of the 28th Division’s history, wrapped in plastic and stuffed with news clippings. Inside, he scribbled notes of his own experience.
He spent the night of Sept. 15 in a pillbox. “It had been manned only by riflemen,” Tweed wrote. “One lay dead outside. He was very young.”
The next morning was quiet.
Tweed’s 12-man squad was reduced to less than a half-dozen men. A new lieutenant had joined the platoon, but “he did not seem to know what to do.”
Tweed looked around and found a final pillbox that needed to be cleared. He crept toward the bunker, planning to drop a grenade into the ventilation shaft.
Then he heard a burst of fire.
A bullet entered just to the left of his nose, pierced his tongue and shattered his jaw before lodging in his shoulder. It knocked him to the ground and out of the line of fire.
“I was just plain lucky,” Tweed said. “If I’d have taken a couple of those bullets, I’d have died.”
He said he didn’t feel any pain as he scrambled back to the other men, who put a bandage on him. He remembers lying for days on a stretcher — unable to eat — while waiting to be flown out.
He still can remember the smell as people hurried past with trays of food.
The 28th went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge. By the end of the war, 4,500 soldiers from the Bloody Bucket were killed or missing.
Tweed began the long journey to England and then Indiana, where doctors sewed him up. He never really thought about the medals. He was just eager to get home to his wife, Florence, and his job at Northern Engraving.
Later, he tried to contact some of his buddies, such as Bart and Jules and Smokey.
“After a while, I gave up,” he said.
Last winter, Trempealeau County Veterans Services Officer Bill Thoma was helping Tweed file a claim when Tweed mentioned he never got his medals.
Thoma, who said it’s not uncommon for combat veterans and their decorations to get separated, filed the paperwork.
On Aug. 21, Sgt. Tweed got his medals.
Replacing war medals
If you or someone you know earned military honors and did not receive — or lost — the medals, replacements are available through the Military Personnel Records Center. Veterans can submit a request at www.archives.gov/st-louis/military-personnel/ or download a blank paper form.
Otherwise, contact your county Veterans Services office for direct assistance.
