In a statement, Nyland said: "While my recollection of the exact circumstances of the presentation of the Purple Heart to Lt. Ferrell long ago is not clear, I would not have presented a Purple Heart without having been advised that the Marine rated one."
Once the Marines Corps realized the error, it had no choice but to remove the awards from the Marines' records, officials said. They did not require that the medals be returned.
An injured 1st Lt. Dustin Ferrell receives a Purple Heart from Marine Gen. William Nyland at the National Naval Medical Center.
(U.s. Marine Corps)
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"The most important point is that the revocation was the right thing to do in order to maintain the sanctity and the specialness of the award," said Lt. Col. T.V. Johnson, a Marine Corps spokesman. "You don't want to be identified as someone wearing their medals incorrectly, or worse, wearing something you don't deserve."
Purple Hearts have triggered controversy before, most recently in the 2004 presidential campaign. Some veterans challenged the three Purple Hearts, as well as the Silver Star, that Democratic nominee John F. Kerry received for his service as a Navy swift boat commander in the Vietnam War.
The Navy's inspector general said after an inquiry in September that Kerry's senior officers "correctly followed the procedures in place at the time" for approving his awards.
Arellano said he felt so guilty about the medal that he refused to wear it. During a uniform inspection, "my sergeant major, who knew about the Purple Heart, said, 'Hey, you're not wearing it.' And I said, 'You know how I feel about that.' "
The sergeant major ordered him to pin it on.
Knowing the fierce emotions surrounding military decorations, Arellano felt like a fraud wearing his medal. So when it was finally taken off his official record, "it relieved me of my guilt," he said.
Relieved though he may have been to have it finally revoked, Arellano also was angry. He had been ordered to accept the medal against his wishes, and he felt as though the Marines had forced him to shame himself every time he put it on.
"Nobody's perfect, and a lot of people make mistakes," he said. "But when it's such high-ranking officers, they should know better."
Ferrell felt the same way. With no memory of how he was injured, Ferrell said, he was told by medical staff that the Humvee he had been riding in was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. About three months later, as the rest of his unit returned to Camp Lejeune, N.C., he learned what had really happened: There had been no grenade, his fellow Marines told him. He was in a traffic accident.
After hearing that his Humvee crashed into an Army truck, Ferrell felt that he still deserved to wear the medal, even if the circumstances under which it was awarded had changed. He was in a combat zone, after all, with war raging all around.
And his wounds were extensive: Fourteen of his teeth had been knocked out. The shattered bones in his face were being held together by an assortment of screws and titanium plates. His left hip had been knocked out of its socket. And he still has a blind spot in his right eye.
Just to make sure, he raised the issue with superiors, who confirmed that he was eligible for the award. And so he wore it proudly.
When it was revoked, he felt as if he had "disgraced" himself by wearing it in front of his fellow Marines, and he chastised higher-ups for the mistake.
"I would not dishonor that medal or myself by wearing the thing again, though sloppy admin allowed me to wear it and shame myself at TWO Marine Corps Birthday Balls," he wrote in an angry e-mail to an administrative officer last month.
The Marines' treatment of the entire incident bewildered him. The medals awarded the two other injured occupants of the Humvee were revoked as well. But not the medal given to the driver who was killed in the crash.
Capt. Christopher B. Logan, a Marine spokesman, said the Marines "weren't going to revoke that award from the deceased and give more undue stress to that Marine's family."
Ferrell continues to undergo physical therapy, but he keeps his Purple Heart shut away in a closet. Once a source of solace, it taunts him now.
"I could always look at the medal as a recognition that the pains I had gone through meant something to my country and the Marine Corps."
Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.
