Latest report in Murl Conner case is most positive heard in some time

Just in time for this week’s observance of Veterans Day, the family and friends who have been working for nearly two decades now to have the nation’s highest war military honor bestowed on Clinton County’s best known soldier, received news of the most positive development last week they had heard in some time.

The effort to have the Congressional Medal of Honor awarded posthumously to Clinton County native Garlin Murl Conner has been an up and down battle since it began, but last week it was announced that the efforts had once again been steered down a positive path.

In late October, the Army Board for Correction of Military Records voted unanimously, against the advice of its own staff, that the evidence was sufficient to warrant a recommendation that Conner receive the Medal of Honor.

In an article printed last week in the Lexington Herald-Leader, Dennis Shepherd, an attorney for the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs, said it was a rare move indeed for the panel to go against the advice of it’s own staff.

The staff report to the board had noted that there was “insufficient evidentiary basis” for the granting of the medal, but the board disregarded that advice totally and instead acted in an “about face” manner completely.

The most recent development was greeted with joy by Conner’s widow, Pauline, who still lives in the Concord community of Clinton County where she and her husband farmed and raised a family after he returned home from World War II.

His son and daughter-in-law, Paul and Kathy Conner, also raised a family in that same Concord Community and continue to live and farm there today.

“I feel much better about it now,” Conner told the Clinton County News during a brief interview this week. “I just hope and pray they make up their minds pretty soon.”

Pauline Conner explained further that her age and health condition presently gave her some concerns about eventually being able to see her late husband honored with the awarding of the Medal of Honor for his acts of bravery during World War II.

“I’m 86 years old and I have a disability,” Conner said. “I just would love to be able to see this happen.”

The effort to have the Medal of Honor awarded to Conner began with the efforts of another former soldier, Richard Chilton, who stumbled across Conner’s World War II accomplishments while doing researched on one of his own relatives from that same war.

Chilton, a former soldier who served with the Green Berets and later became involved in military history, researched Conner’s military career several years ago, and was one of the leaders in the effort of going after the Medal of Honor for Conner.

In 1998, Chilton made a presentation locally concerning Conner’s military service to a crowd gathered at Clinton County High School, at which time he also presented the Conner family with a copy of his research findings.

In March of 2014, the effort received perhaps the worst news that had been experienced since the beginning when a federal judge, Thomas B. Russell, issued an opinion that noted due to a technicality in the case regarding the amount of time that had elapsed between the previous presentation of evidence, the statute of limitations had been exceeded.

At that time, the opinion by the federal judge would have appeared to have ended the quest as he noted that the matter would be prevented from being considered “now or in the future.”

For Pauline Conner, Chilton and the others who have continued to make attempts to take the case forward, that notion simply didn’t sit well at all.

“I’m absolutely going to continue to fight – I don’t give up very easily,” Pauline Conner told the Clinton County News after that March, 2014 development.

Despite that setback, just a few months later, in July of 2014, news of another development in the case, this one of a positive nature, was announced that the case would move to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

Conner, who passed away in 1998 at the age of 79, was Kentucky’s most decorated soldier of World War II, and reportedly the second most decorated soldier from that war.

His acts of bravery resulted in his being awarded four Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars, the French Croix de Guerre, seven Purple Hearts and the Distinguished Service Cross.

Serving in the 3rd Infantry Division, after being wounded, Conner “slipped away” from an Army hospital while recovering from battle wounds to keep from being sent home to Clinton County, instead returning back to the front lines of battle.

After returning to the front lines with his unit, he reportedly single-handedly unspooled a roll of telephone wire as he advanced himself toward the enemy, directing that artillery be fired on his own location, resulting in the killing of 50 enemy soldiers and the wounding of over 100 more.

Accounts of his actions during the war have noted that he often stood up during fire fights instead of crawling toward his enemy because he could get a better look at where the enemy was shooting from.

Conner was said to have scouted alone for the security of his men, maneuvering through shells exploding only 25 yards from him, to set up an observation post where he stayed for more than three hours during the intense fighting, individually credited with stopping more than 150 Germans, demolishing the tanks and disintegrating the strong enemy assault force, while at the same time preventing catastrophic loss of life in his own outfit.

Conner’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Lloyd Ramsey, was wounded soon afterward, and was not able to see to it himself that the paperwork for the Medal of Honor was properly channeled.

When completing his memoirs, Ramsey wrote that he had “never seen a man with as much courage” as Conner had, adding that his actions in January, 1945 should have certainly seen him awarded the Medal of Honor.