But he was even more surprised to have the medal pinned on him a second time. In the late 1960s, Comita's home was burglarized and his medals were stolen.

He petitioned the government at the time to have his medals replaced, but met with so much red tape and institutional disorganization that he eventually gave up. Thanks to the efforts of Middlesex County Sheriff James V. DiPaola, Comita finally has another Purple Heart, presented to him in the Senate Chamber of the Massachusetts State House on Nov. 21.

Comita served with the Seventh Division Combat Engineers and was injured in the Philippines during the invasion of Leyte, shortly after the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

"We worked for five days straight unloading supplies on the beach," Comita tells MassNews. "We worked around the clock bringing supplies to the infantry. The commander wouldn't put the lights out, until we could hear the planes.

"It was pitch dark. Naturally, I dove into a foxhole. (We had built foxholes in the soft sand).

"Suddenly, I felt myself flying through the air! When I landed, I felt the sand coming down like grain," he says. "The concussion was so strong, I can see where it would tear you to shreds if it hit you just right.

"I must have blacked out. When I woke up, it was daylight on a Navy ship, and they were checking me out. My ears were bleeding," he tells MassNews. "Maybe that's why I wear a hearing aid now. I don't know.

"They sent me to the field hospital. I was there for a week and a half, but the Japanese were strafing the hospital, and I thought, 'I've got to get out of here!'"

Without permission, Comita walked out of the hospital and went back into the jungle to find his unit.

"I never went back to the hospital," he says. "But I found my unit. I recognized a mail clerk coming onto the beach in a jeep. He said, 'Comita! We thought you were dead! You were half-buried. We had to dig you out.'"

Comita went on to Okinawa, where he participated in one of the bloodiest engagements of the war. "I never had a furlough," he says.

Owns Service Station in Malden

Sheriff Di Paola has been a customer at Andy's Service Center, the Comitas' family-owned service station on Lebanon Street in Malden for many years. About six months ago, he noticed a license plate with the Military Order of the Purple Heart. He asked Comita, who was pumping gasoline, the identity of the Purple Heart recipient, and was surprised to learn that it was Comita himself.

"When he told me his medal was stolen, I said, 'Get me a copy of your discharge papers. I can't promise anything.'"

Three generations have owned the gas station, Sheriff DiPaola tells MassNews. "I live around the corner. I asked, 'Whose Purple Heart license plate?' I thought it was a customer's.

"Nobody could find the records. We worked through Congressman Markey's office and with Congressman Meehan, who is on the Armed Services Committee."

Comita comes from a family with 12 children. His brother Frank, was a corporal in the Army during World War II. "When you're in the service, it makes you feel so proud of yourself because you served your country," he tells MassNews. "Andy never talked about the war. Our older brother, Hugo, was with the 100th Division and he was a prisoner of war in Germany. He went through hell, but he lived into his 80s."

Andrew Comita lives in Winchester where he was born and went to school, although he lived in Somerville for 51 years. He has a son, Andrew III (although they claim the name Andrew goes back many generations), and a daughter who is deceased. He has four grandchildren and one great grandchild.

"That first medal was pinned on me by a three-star general. I don't remember his name," Comita told MassNews. "When my commander told me to go to such and such a place, that I was getting a Purple Heart, I asked him, 'Why?' He told me, 'You deserve it!' I'm 80 years old. I never thought I'd see that medal replaced."

Sidebar:
Purple Heart Originated with George Washington

Geraldine A. Hawkins
December 12, 2002

Toward the end of the Revolutionary War, General George Washington devised the Badge of Military Merit, the "figure of a heart in purple cloth or silk edged with narrow lace or binding." To be presented for "any singularly meritorious action."

After the Revolution, there were no recipients of the Badge of Military Merit. It was not until 1927 that General Charles P. Summerall, Army Chief of Staff, directed a bill to be sent to Congress "to revive the Badge of Military Merit."

The bill was dormant until 1931 when General Douglas MacArthur, Summerall's successor, got the case reopened with the intent of issuing a new medal on the bicentennial of the birth of George Washington. The War Department announced the creation of the new medal on February 22, 1932.

The Purple Heart is different from other military medals in that the individual is not "recommended" for its reception. A person becomes entitled to the decoration upon receiving "a wound which necessitates treatment by a medical officer and which is received in action with an enemy," if this wound "may in the judgment of the commander authorized to make the award be construed as resulting from a singularly meritorious act of essential service."

For ten years, the Navy Department was not authorized to issue the Purple Heart, but with an eerie sense of timing, President Franklin D. Roosevelt changed that on December 6, 1941.

A few years later, President Harry S. Truman made qualification for the award retroactive by extending its eligibility to veterans of the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard back to April 5, 1917.