Somehow, the United States government got it all wrong.

Joseph Kurtz, the chestnut-haired, hazel-eyed football captain and star of the Devils Lake High School team - who had worked fiercely toward athletic greatness and was expected to achieve a college football scholarship - was taken away by the Army a week after high school graduation.

The Army knew what it was doing there. There was no mistake about what it was doing there.

But then, on Nov. 4, 1944, Kurtz, a soldier with the 104th Infantry Division, lay injured in Holland, his right tibia shattered from German soldiers' fire. And there he lay. He was unable to get help from early morning to evening, pinned down by German mortar shells that bounced all around him. Medics were unable to get to him all day.

Somehow, the Army got that situation all wrong.

And Kurtz, of Bismarck, now age 83, retired auto mechanic, father of seven, grandfather of nine grandchildren, great-grandfather of three, never realized the Army had it wrong. Until recently.

He remembered, oh so well, getting wounded. But the Army didn't remember that. Until recently.

Kurtz's son-in-law, Tom Schulz, of Minot, was doing some Internet research and tried in vain to find a mention of Kurtz's name on the Army's list of Purple Heart recipients. Turns out Kurtz wasn't on any list, because there weren't any Army records, possibly because of a past fire, indicating he had been wounded in battle.

And because he had received no wounds, as far as the Army knew, he had received no medals.

But Kurtz knew he had a Purple Heart metal, anyway, because it was presented to him at a Spokane, Wash., hospital.

Kurtz was able to get his honorable discharge papers corrected, after medical records and other documentation verified his war-time experiences. And one day in the mail he got a surprise, an envelope full of medals from the Army. His son, Duane Kurtz, asked him what he planned to do with them. And Joseph Kurtz said he was going to put them in the cedar chest with some other papers. But his son had other ideas.

"I thought that was inappropriate,"Duane Kurtz, about the medal presentation being just an envelope shipped in the mail.

So he asked the North Dakota National Guard for some help.

On Saturday, Kurtz, a combat infantryman, received his medals - 10 of them, including the Purple Heart and Bronze Star - at a formal ceremony at the Army National Guard Aviation Readiness Center south of Bismarck. About 100 members of the 112th Aviation Battalion, stood facing him, at attention.

"Everyone here in the battalion was honored to stand in formation and show respect to a World War IIveteran,"said their commander, Kurtz's nephew, Lt. Col. Gregory A. Kurtz, after the ceremony.

Duane Kurtz said his father never talked about his experiences much. Often, when asked to, "He would tear up … turn around and walk away,"Duane Kurtz remembers.

"It's nothing to brag about … war is hell," Joseph Kurtz said. "Actually, you become an animal … on the front line. You can be the biggest coward, but if you're cornered, you're going to fight."

Kurtz, of German background, said it was tough thinking he could be fighting against some of his German relatives.He said it was understood that the German soldiers were being forced to fight by the SStroops behind them. The SS pushed them to fight or be killed.

Duane Kurtz said his dad has started talking about his wartime experiences a little more. One year for Christmas, he gave all of his children a tape of the movie, "Saving Private Ryan,"with a note. The note informed that the first 10 or 15 minutes of the movie - which depicted the Omaha Beachhead assault during the June 6, 1944 Normandy Landings - was an accurate depiction of what he had been through.

It's the years after WWIIthat his son, Duane Kurtz, thinks of when explaining what he admires about his father.

"He'd do anything for anybody,"Duane Kurtz said. "He comes off as gruff … but he's real soft on the inside," he said about his dad, who, after coming home from war, married Dorothy, his high school sweetheart, and was an auto mechanic with Fleck Motors for 42 years before retiring.

He made the money. Dorothy watched over the house and children. The couple remembers It took a long time to save money for a tent. After the tent purchase, that's what the large family did for fun, lots of camping.

Whenever times get tough, Joseph Kurtz said he thinks about his father, a railroad worker who didn't have an education, didn't know how to read or write. But still nothing ever stopped his dad, said Kurtz, who still lives with Dorothy in the house where they raised their family and where he still does the yard work and was repairing the home's air conditioning unit this day.

"Nothing was too big for him to do,"Joseph Kurtz said about his dad, Casper Kurtz.

And maybe that's the real medal. Or rather, the real mettle - carried from father to son.