Medal for mettle, years later.

Byline: Randi Bjornstad The Register-Guard

Exactly how it came about remains a mystery, but Rayphord "Tex" Tiffee recently opened a plain brown padded envelope postmarked Philadelphia and found a Bronze Star inside.

"I had to sit down - my knees buckled," the 82-year-old Eugene man said this week.

It's been 57 years since he left the Army after serving two years in the South Pacific during World War II.

The Bronze Star came with no explanation, no letter. And Tiffee doesn't know exactly why or how he suddenly received the award, bestowed on soldiers for heroism.

He does remember an officer once describing him as "a hell of a soldier, and a fighting son of a bitch."

"I can't tell you much more; there's been a lot of mountains climbed, a lot of water under the bridge since then," Tiffee said. "I was just doing my job."

Apparently he did it well. His daughter, Zulla Williams, keeps a collection of badges, bars, medals and other objects of her dad's military memorabilia in a shadow-box coffee table in her Austin, Texas, living room.

"He was a sharpshooter; he has some awards for that," Williams said. He also has a presidential citation from Franklin Roosevelt and an honorable discharge lapel pin, featuring a rather humorously sculpted eagle that quickly got dubbed the "ruptured duck" by World War II era veterans.

A couple of others that Tiffee won may hold a key to why he belatedly received the Bronze Star.

He got a regular Combat Infantry Badge after he did some special training that included a 1-mile swim with a full field pack and a rifle, he recalled. Then, after two major battles in the South Pacific - including the fabled campaign on Iwo Jima - Tiffee received a second Combat Infantry Badge, this time bedecked by a wreath, "for hand-to-hand combat with a rifle and bayonet."

That could automatically have qualified him for the Bronze Star, said Joseph Reiley, Lane County's coordinator of veterans' services.

Roosevelt commissioned the Bronze Star in 1944 to honor heroic acts of military service that occurred on or after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Shortly after World War II, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower won authorization to award the Bronze Star to any World War II veteran who also had received a Combat Infantry Badge or Combat Medic Badge.

"The theory behind the rule was Eisenhower's feeling that all who had served in the ground infantry had performed heroically," Reiley said.

That would be enough to explain Tiffee's receipt of the Bronze Star - but not necessarily why now instead of decades ago, Reiley said.

It's probable that Tiffee was recommended for the award during World War II, but it fell through the cracks and someone recently discovered the oversight, Reiley said. Tiffee's local file doesn't offer any clues, he said.

It's possible that thousands of other World War II veterans from all military branches also could be entitled to the Bronze Star. According to the U.S. Army News Service, many World War II papers burned in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Mo., in the early 1960s, preventing the processing of many awards unless veterans came to the attention of military authorities for some other reason.

That may have happened in her father's case, Williams said. Not long ago, he submitted a request to Veterans Affairs to secure a reduction in his co-payment for medical prescriptions.

"It's ironic - they sent him the medal and denied him the medication (assistance)," she said.

Born in Texas - hence his nickname - Tiffee left there right out of high school and went to Nebraska. He moved to Eugene early in 1940 and got a job with Meadow Gold Dairy Products.

He joined the Army early in 1944.

"I went in as a volunteer - I was older than a lot of people because I was working in food processing, so I wasn't drafted," he said. "One day, I went to the J.C. Penney store in downtown Eugene to buy a new white shirt for work. I looked around, and I was the only man in there. I said, 'Man, I got no business here.' I went right over and signed up."

That created fireworks at home, before the new recruit ever got a glimpse of battle, said Williams, just 4 years old when her father went away to war.

"My mom was furious when he got home and told her," Williams said.

"It's kind of a family joke now how furious she was. Just before he left, she got pregnant again, with my sister."

The couple later divorced after 37 years of marriage. Tiffee and his second wife, Marthalee, have been married 28 years. After the war, Tiffee returned to Eugene and to Meadow Gold, retiring as plant manager in 1976.

Like many other combat veterans, Tiffee doesn't talk much about his experiences, although dreams about the war still disrupt his sleep occasionally and he has health problems traceable to military service, Marthalee Tiffee said.

Receiving the medal last week "made him speechless," she said.

Having the Bronze Star in his hands, even - or maybe especially - after all these years, means more to him than he would have expected, Tiffee acknowledged.

"It makes it all worthwhile," he said.

CAPTION(S):

M i l i t a r y Chris Pietsch / The Register-Guard Rayphord "Tex" Tiffee received a surprise in the mail recently: a Bronze Star awarded for his role as a soldier in the South Pacific during World War II. The medal, which left its recipient speechless, came with no letter.