Nearly seven decades after serving in World War II, Mineola resident Ray Vaz finally received the medals he had earned for his service.
In a ceremony conducted by Rep. Carolyn, the D-Day survivor was awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, the combat infantryman badge, the World War II Victory medal and the European-African-Middle Eastern bronze service medal.
“I don’t deserve this,” Vaz said, with tears welling up. “There are too many people still there.”
McCarthy gently put her hand on his back and consoled him.
“This is for your children and for your grandchildren,” McCarthy said. “Thank you for your service.”
Vaz, 88, and his wife, Ann, have three children and seven grandchildren.
Vaz said he had remained silent about his war service for 40 years after the war ended and only opened up to the sixth grade students his daughter, Caryl Salesi, teaches at the Mineola Middle School over the past decade
“My parents died and they never knew what I went through,” he said.
What he went though included being wounded twice – the second time from artillery shell shrapnel – and the horrific experience of liberating the Buchenwald death camp.
“After Buchenwald, you wanted to kill every German,” he told Blank Slate Media in a recent interview. “The ovens, the people, the smell – you never forget.”
Vaz said when he returned to the U.S. after being wounded twice during 11 months of front-line fighting as a member of 90th Infantry Division with Gen. George Patton’s Third Army, he wasn’t thinking about medals. He just wanted to be back home in Mineola.
An officer offered him an immediate discharge option with a 10 percent disability. Vaz immediately took it and was mustered out.
“I felt when I was out of the service, I wanted to get home,” he recalled. “I didn’t think they owed me anything.”
He had received one Purple Heart medal while he was recuperating in England from being shot in the leg by a German sniper during the second day of combat.
At the time, he didn’t feel as though he’d earned any special recognition.
“They come into the hospital and they give it to you. I felt I was getting something I didn’t deserve,” Vaz said. “Why should I get what million others didn’t?”
He said he almost never saw that second day of combat. Landing craft ahead of the one he was in were taking direct hits on Utah Beach and he disembarked “a football field away” from the beachhead, he recalled.
He said he sunk straight down with the weight of the equipment he was carrying. After losing his rifle and helmet, he said he managed to inflate the “Mae West” water wings he’s been issued and made it to the beach. He found an abandoned rifle there, made it inland, only to be struck by a sniper’s bullet on the second day of combat.
After he returned to combat, Vaz was part of advanced party that crossed the Mosselle River when he was knocked out and seriously wounded by a German artillery shell.
He said he decided to seek the combat citations he’d never received four months ago after a discussion with fellow veterans at Adolph Block VFW Post 1305 in Mineola.
He said he never sought any increase in his disability, but when officials at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Northport recently realized he still couldn’t straighten his right arm beyond 90 degrees, his status was changed to 50 percent disability.
“To this day, I never asked the Army for anything,” he said.
On the advice of fellow VFW veterans, Vaz contacted Rep. McCarthy’s office and her staff followed through with the requisite paperwork to obtain the long-deserved citations.
“We’ve noticed over the past several years more and more families are coming in. It’s one of our proudest moments,” McCarthy said of presenting Vaz with his medals.
Vaz’s wife and daughter, Suzanne were in McCarthy’s office to observe the presentation of the medals.
“He’s strong, let me tell you,” Ann Vaz said.
