World: The Sergeant's Saga

He stepped off a jet at Washington's Andrews Air Force Base and embraced his mother and his fiancee while his three beaming sisters looked on. Then, as a band launched into the Marines' Hymn, Sergeant Kenneth Kraus drew his 5-ft. 6-in. frame to proud attention. Navy Secretary W. Graham Claytor pinned the Navy Commendation Medal on his chest, and the Marine commandant, General Louis Wilson, awarded him a Purple Heart. Said Claytor: "You acted like a Marine should, and that's the finest thing we can say."

How Kraus, a 22-year-old from Lansdale, Pa., got his decorations says much about the postrevolution confusion...

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