Families of Deceased Soldiers Thankful for New Purple Heart Criteria

Oct. 15, 2008— -- Sgt. Coleman Edwards had survived five months of combat when he and his comrades were captured by North Korean forces.

Edwards, who had a young daughter who barely knew him, was strong enough then to help carry his injured troops from the segregated 24th Army Regiment on their grueling trek to the North Korean prison camp.

He was captured Nov. 28, 1950. Four months later, in March 1951, he was dead of starvation and disease.

Now, 57 years later, Edwards is among thousands of deceased prisoners of war who may be eligible for a posthumous Purple Heart under revised Department of Defense eligibility criteria.

Edwards' only child, Gail Embery, has tried for 11 years to get that honor for her father, who died from malnutrition and dysentery in a North Korean prison. But, she said, he hadn't been eligible because no one could prove he was killed by his captors.

Previously, Purple Hearts were awarded only to servicemen and women in cases in which it could be proved they'd died or been wounded as a direct result of enemy action, such as in a shooting. The new guidelines presume that any POW who died in captivity since Dec. 7, 1941 -- the day Pearl Harbor was bombed -- died either as the result of enemy action or from wounds incurred "in action with the enemy" during capture.

For Embery, now a social worker in Detroit, the new guidelines mean her father will finally get the chance to be recognized with one of the country's oldest military honors.

"Every time I talk about this I cry," she told ABCNews.com. "Because I feel there's just a part of me that is missing."

Overcoming the Burden of Proof

Embery doesn't remember the man who has been described to her as a strong, natural leader. She was 5 years old when he was captured, and she grew up with her mother and stepfather, her mother shying away from the truth to protect her oldest daughter.

It was her great-grandmother who finally told her the truth after catching a preteen Embery once again admiring the picture of a handsome stranger that hung in an ornate frame on the dining room wall. That stranger, Embery learned, was her father, not her mother's friend as she'd thought.