When Jimmy Carter appointed disabled vet Max Cleland to head the V.A.

[Tanuki]

https://medium.com/the-judy-flander-interview/president-jimmy-carter-appoints-badly-disabled-war-hero-max-cleland-va-head-7abc778b7271

"The Washington Star, Fall, 1977: Max Cleland doesn’t have either of his legs or his right arm. Max Cleland doesn’t have a Purple Heart. But Max Cleland is one of the true heroes of the Vietnam war and his choice by President Carter to head the Veterans Administration is so inspired that in retrospect it seems to have been inevitable.

Cleland was the first person on Carter’s appointment schedule — “Four hours and 40 minutes” after the inaugural, he tells us, delighted.

“I was told to come to the White House at 4, the parade was hardly over when I saw him,” Cleland says with great pleasure but not a trace of pride. He won’t say exactly what the President wanted to see him about, but obviously the VA appointment came up in the conversation.
.....
You’re only with him five minutes before you forget how much he lost in the Vietnam war. Because Max Cleland isn’t a loser. Since Vietnam, he has served two terms in the Georgia State Senate.

“I ran for the State Senate at the same time a young fellow named Jimmy Carter ran for governor. He won. I won,” says Cleland, explaining how he happened to first meet the President.

“He and I were deeply involved together in veterans’ concerns.” Carter backed legislation Cleland authored to beef up state money for veterans wanting to go back to school on the GI bill and he put Cleland in charge of a special committee he created to investigate the problems of returning veterans.

“I was an early, ardent supporter,” says Cleland, who clearly venerates Carter. “I can’t tell you how strongly I feel about him. When he said in his acceptance speech, ‘to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God,’ well, that’s my favorite passage in the Bible, too. “That’s my approach to living, to tragedy, to heartbreak. I have come to this. I wasn’t always this way. My country wasn’t always this way, either. But now, it is a lot more restrained, a lot more open minded.”.....(more)

[packman]

1. How can a vet loose both legs and an arm and NOT have a Purple Heart?

[haele]

2. Purple Heart is for battle wounds.

Max Cleland lost his arm and legs due to a stupid mistake by another soldier in his platoon while they were going to set up a relay station. He was not in a combat zone at the time.

So, no purple heart.

Haele

[packman]

3. Thanks for the clarification