WWII Vet Receives Replacement Medal From Congressman
Huntsville Times
By Kay Campbell
October 22, 2004

FAYETTEVILLE, Tenn. - Sixty years and thinking of the day he sloshed ashore at Normandy to invade France still brings a distant look to the ice-blue eyes of Terrell Price, 86.

Price remembered that day Thursday as U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Pall Mall, came to Sunbridge Care and Rehabilitation Center to bring him a replacement for the Silver Star he was awarded for gallantry in action.

Price lost his original medal in a messy divorce some years ago, said his daughter, Sharon Stewart of Fayetteville.

Price, who says he has trouble remembering much these days, could remember D-Day.

"I had a Browning automatic," Price said. "It could shoot 12 times without stopping."

He motioned with his gnarled hands as he described how he would take a clip out of his belt and slam it into the chamber. He raised the imaginary rifle in his hands, suddenly steady as he took aim.

"And you could go to town," he said.

But when he described the terrible moment when his squad walked into an ambush, his smile evaporates.

"They sent us to the wrong place, they did," he said, his eyes peaked with the betrayal. "Hell all opened up. One guy said, 'Let's go get those Germans.' He and the sergeant walked out and they both got killed, and I don't know how many more."

Price angled down a hedgerow and ducked behind a bush. A German sniper, who had been hiding behind the hedgerow and picking off Price's comrades, took aim at Price and fired.

He missed.

Price didn't miss.

He rarely missed, he said. Growing up in Adger, southwest of Birmingham, he hunted squirrels and rabbits. On marksmanship tests in the Army, after he was drafted in 1942, he once shot 99 bulls-eyes out of 100.

He'd rather remember the shooting range than the battle itself.

"I shot a whole lot I don't remember nothing about," Price said softly. "I probably killed them."

Price spent most of the war supervising warehouses and the loading and unloading of ships in Iceland, he said. He came home, married, and lived most of his adult life in Phoenix, where he was a tree surgeon for the city.

His daughter and her husband, Mike, moved Price to Fayetteville last year when he needed more assistance with daily living. When Mike realized his father-in-law's medal was left behind after a divorce locked him out on the street, he began working with Davis' office to get a replacement.

Thursday morning, Mike Stewart watched Davis telling Price about the D-Day commemoration he attended in June with President Bush. Stewart was glad the 4th District congressman was able to take the time and effort for his father-in-law.

"This couldn't happen to a nicer person," he said.