WASHINGTON (CN) — Talk about a surprise party. Forty-seven years after Fred Rivera saw his best friend die in his arms during a firefight in Vietnam — then found out only recently that Herman Johnson is alive — Fred saw Herman get his long-overdue Purple Heart in an emotional reunion at the Vietnam Memorial Wall on Sunday.
The weekend held multiple surprises for Johnson, 68, of Warren, Mich.
His congressman, Sander Levin, was there. A three-star general, Lt. Gen. Guy C. Swan III, Ret., pinned the Purple Heart onto his breast in a ceremony at the Three Soldiers monument by The Wall.
"We're going to correct that record here today and make sure that Mr. Johnson gets his award that is 47 years overdue," Swan said.
Sgt. John Marek, who enlisted other veterans to track Herman down and united him with Fred, conducted the ceremony.
"This is to certify the President of the United States of America has awarded the Purple Heart, established by Gen. George Washington, at Newburgh, N.Y., Aug. 7, 1782 to Private First Class Herman Johnson," Marek said.
Gentle sounds of weeping filled the air.
Herman thought he would never see Fred again, and no idea that his long-lost friend had spent weeks burning up the phone lines to get Herman his Purple Heart — and to keep it a secret.
"I'm almost crying, ya'll. I never thought this would happen," Herman said after Swan pinned the combat medal on him. He choked back tears. So did Swan.
"It shocked me. Tears came into my eyes ... I never expected this," Herman said in an interview after the ceremony. "I'm honored. I appreciate everything they did for me. Everything."
After finding out in March that his old brother in arms was still alive, Fred set out on a secret quest to get Herman his Purple Heart. He was frustrated for months by Army red tape, despite the efforts of Rep. Levin and veterans organizations.
But a lieutenant general isn't just any other veteran. Swan, a veteran of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, as are Fred and Herman, pulled rank on the Army bureaucracy. It approved Herman's Purple Heart on June 30 and sent it to Levin's office.
Fred told Herman he would get a lapel pin at the Sunday ceremony, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the U.S. entry into the war. And that's what Herman thought until the retired general pinned the Purple Star over his heart.
Herman, appropriately, had dressed in purple slacks and a white dress shirt with purple trim.
Rivera immortalized his bond with Herman, and what he thought was Herman's death, in a lightly fictionalized, award-winning 2014 novel, "Raw Man."
"Everything in that book is true," Herman told Courthouse News — except that he didn't die.
During an eight-hour firefight in the Parrot's Beak on Aug. 20, 1969, a rocket blew both men out of their track. Fred was the driver; Herman fired a .60-caliber machinegun inches over Fred's head. Fred, injured himself, though he did not yet know how badly, held Herman in his arms and watched him bleed out until medics took him away.
