HUBBARD — Army veteran Bobby Orr is a Purple Heart recipient who worked with Hubbard officials to get a bridge dedicated to Purple Heart veterans.

Orr, 75, spoke in May at the dedication of the bridge on East Liberty Street.

Orr graduated at 18 in 1966 from Hubbard High School and, eight months later, he was drafted. He went to Fort Benning, Ga., for infantry training and then to Fort Polk in Louisiana for jungle training.

“When you go to Fort Polk for jungle training, you knew automatically you were going to Vietnam. In Louisiana, there are swamps you train in and they set it up with a village, like in Vietnam,” he said.

Orr ended up next being sent to Vietnam, landing in Cam Ranh Bay.

“They gave us jungle fatigues and jungle boots, a backpack and an M-16 rifle. Six of us were shipped by a helicopter to a location where a career sergeant told us how he was a teenager in World War II, who fought in Korea and was on his second tour in Vietnam. He told us we were there because the last six did not listen to him,” Orr said.

Orr said the sergeant told them to forget what they learned in jungle training and listen to someone who has been in Vietnam six to eight months — because that is why they’re still alive. He told them don’t get close to people because they may not be there the next day and that they would see things they will not believe that would change their life forever.

“He told us to keep our eyes and ears open and our mouths shut,” Orr said as they prepared for combat.

He said the United States was helping the South Vietnamese against the North Vietnamese Army, who also were well-trained soldiers.

JUNGLE DANGERS

“There a lot of trails because the jungle is so thick. You have to watch for booby traps and snipers,” he recalled.

“I was a squad leader and had to move the men out. We came to a clearing, and what you don’t do is walk into the clearing but instead follow the tree line around. Frankie walked into the clearing and I yelled his name, and he said ‘What?’ And as soon as he said that, he got the back of his head blown off. I knew he was dead. I rolled in the elephant grass because I knew I would be next. The sniper was trying to get me but I stayed down. I wanted to get even with him because of Frankie,” Orr said.

Orr said Frankie had a wife and two young children and he would receive eight-track tapes from his wife with recordings of the children.

He said he and other soldiers were able to get Frankie’s body and carry him back.

“I never forgot that. I saw at least a dozen people killed,” Orr said.

He said after he came home, he wanted to reach Frankie’s family and called a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in California, learning the wife and children left the area.

“I learned they had a monument for Frankie in front of that VFW,” he said.

Years later, a man from California came to the Hubbard VFW to see him.

“It was an older man who was Frankie’s cousin. He told me he did not know where the wife and kids went. I told him what happened, since I was 5 feet behind Frankie when he was killed,” Orr said.

He said he remembers being told: “If you can get through Vietnam in 365 days, you knew you were going home.”

“You kept track of every day. Many people got killed on their first day there and many got killed on their last day there,” he said.

PURPLE HEART

Orr said he was on patrol with the platoon at the Cambodian border and they walked into a North Vietnamese ambush.

“We ran for cover. One of the guys got wounded and we tried to drag him to cover. That is when I got hit in the back. It was a flesh wound,” he said.

He said he started the Purple Heart Veterans Bridge project in honor of Cpl. Richard Choppa. Orr said Choppa grew up near him in Hubbard.

“He was killed in Vietnam 15 miles from where I was at,” he said of a sign dedicated to Choppa in Hubbard.

Orr said the bridge is important because it reminds everyone to teach the younger generation what the Purple Heart is all about.

“The lucky Purple Heart recipients made it. A lot of others did not make it. That is why we respect and honor Purple Heart recipients. When you get wounded, you do not know if you will make it or not,” he said.

When he came home in September 1968 at 19, he ended up getting malaria.

“I was in Northside Hospital for 21 days. They thought I had pneumonia and couldn’t break my temperature. I was close to 106 temperature. When you have malaria, your teeth are chattering. The maintenance people built a box around the bed and strapped me down and dumped ice all around me to break the temperature,” he said,

Orr said the hospital called Fort Knox to talk to a doctor there, who came to Youngstown to help.

“They told him they were treating me for double pneumonia when he knew it was malaria. They flew a doctor from Fort Knox here to treat me. After 21 days, I was released,” Orr said.

TREATMENT AT HOME

“I tell everyone we fought two wars — one in Vietnam and one when we got home. We were treated terribly even by other veterans, including World War II veterans. I never wanted to see the Afghanistan and Iraq veterans treated like Vietnam veterans were treated.”

Orr said he was always angry when he was told the Vietnam War was the only war the United States lost.

“We didn’t lose. Our government quit. Over 58,000 military persons were killed during the war,” he said.

He later served as commander for VFW Post 3767 from 2000 to 2013.

Orr said being a Purple Heart veteran “is a genuine feeling that you gave it all and did not know if you would come home or not. But you did it all for your country, no matter what the cost was.”

He said every time he crosses the Purple Heart Veterans Bridge to visit his wife and son at Hubbard Union Cemetery he also stops to see Choppa, to whom he gives a military salute.

“I tell him he will never be forgotten,” Orr said.

Bobby Orr

AGE: 75

RESIDENCE: Hubbard

SERVICE BRANCH: Army

MILITARY HONORS: Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Infantry Badge

OCCUPATION: Millwright at Republic Steel and Hubbard water and wastewater department employee

FAMILY: First wife, Patricia (deceased); second wife, Andrea Menkovich; two children, Dr. Robert Orr (deceased) and Dana Furst; and two stepchildren, Steven Fillimon and Samantha Fillimon