Interview: James McCormick, National Commander, Military Order of the Purple Heart

By Chuck Oldham

James McCormick was born in West Virginia, the son of a Vietnam veteran. He spent 22 years in the Army and Army National Guard. He served as an enlisted man for 16 years before deciding to become an officer, and retired as a captain. McCormick is a combat veteran of Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. During combat operations in Iraq during 2004-2005, he was wounded on three separate occasions. He has been a Life Member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH) since 2008. Among his awards are the Silver Star, three awards of the Bronze Star with Valor, three Purple Hearts, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Achievement Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Southwest Asia Service Medal with three service stars, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service and Expeditionary Medal, the Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, the Kuwait Liberation Medal, and the Combat Action Badge. His civilian awards include the Congressional Medal of Honor Society “Citizen Service Above Self” Medal and the Jefferson Award for civic service.

The Purple Heart Medal is linked to the Badge of Military Merit established by George Washington during the Revolutionary War, and has since been awarded to those wounded or killed while serving in the U.S. military.

Veterans Affairs and Military Medicine Outlook: Was it your personal experience that motivated you to become a part of this organization or was it a combination of things?

James McCormick: Well, [it was] because I was qualified to join the organization as a Purple Heart recipient, number one, but also the fact that I was seriously looking at trying to get involved to help my fellow veterans if I could do it. So this seemed like a good fit for me. I was actually still in the Army. I had not been retired. So I joined the Military Order of the Purple Heart in 2008, and I retired from the Army in 2009. From 2008 until probably 2010, I was just a member. I had never held a position or did anything outside of being a member, paying my dues and participating.

James McCormick, National Commander, Military Order of the Purple Heart

The Purple Heart wasn’t necessarily an award just for being wounded. It was a valor award, is that right?

It was originally created by Gen. George Washington in 1782. … If you go back and study the history, there were a lot of things that were going on; the Revolutionary War had just tapped everyone out of money, soldiers weren’t getting paid, there were just a lot of things that were happening, and the morale was low. What George Washington wanted to do was to come up with a way to boost morale, but also recognize sacrifices that were made by enlisted soldiers. So back then, it was only for the enlisted soldiers because officers got a lot of things, but that poor enlisted soldier who actually does the fighting and lifts the heavy weight doesn’t. So that was what the medal – it was actually a badge, the badge of military merit – was meant to do. We only have records that two of those were awarded, and they were for exceptional valor – they were what you would get the Medal of Honor for today.

Members of the Military Order of the Purple Heart sit in attendance for an annual remembrance ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial site in Jacksonville, North Carolina, Sept. 11, 2013. The ceremony was held as an annual tribute to all the fallen victims during the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Do you have any idea of how many service members have received the Purple Heart?

We can tell you that we have a list of about 486,000 that comes out in a publication that we update every three years. It’s a voluntary entry. It’s a huge book – living, deceased, everybody that we can get to sign on voluntarily or, if they’re deceased, we would put their names into this book. But there is obviously a lot more than that. So the answer is that no one really has that number. There are several initiatives out there. One, which we have sponsored, working in collaboration with the National Flag Foundation, is to ask the Secretary of Defense to start collecting those names of current recipients and allow those who want to have their names or family members’ names that can provide documentation, to add their names to that list. But it would be purely voluntary. Some of the pushback we’ve had on that has been, ‘well, it violates their personal rights, maybe they don’t want you to know that they have a Purple Heart.’ Maybe that’s true, but we do think it’s important to start cataloging, that somebody have that data, whether it be a publicly accessible list or whether it be a list that just the Secretary of Defense has that people can get access to. Whatever the case, we’ve got to do something more than what we’re doing now. I would be able to tell you that we have 4 million recipients or 6 million recipients, but I just can’t give you that number now.

Then-Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert B. Neller speaks at the Military Order of the Purple Heart National Convention in Norfolk, Virginia, Aug. 13, 2016. The organization held its 88th annual convention in 2021.

What proportion of Purple Heart recipients have medical issues that follow them for the rest of their lives due to the wounds received while they were serving their country?

For the physical aspect, I’ve been gunshot three different times, and I was in a roadside bomb blast. So, I know for me personally, I can tell you that I’ve experienced difficulties and still do. The majority that I’ve seen have some sort of physical ailment. When I say the majority, I’ll give you a percentage of somewhere around 96 percent. That’s a pretty good estimate: 95 percent on the low end and 96.5 percent on the high end have permanent disabling conditions from their injuries related to the Purple Heart. But again, that’s within our organization. I can tell you that every one of them – they never forget the incident. I don’t think that they are mentally deficient or they can’t do their jobs or something like that, because most of us do go on to successful careers outside of the military. But even I, as the National Commander, can tell you that I myself personally deal with post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]. So there are some times when I really reflect on the injuries. And more so, not just the injuries, but the actions that led to the injuries, because mine were all in direct combat operations. It was a very serious, deadly situation where people were killed, people were horrifically wounded. It wasn’t just all about me, and I remember a lot about that.

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So, as far as the physical ailments, yes, there’s definitely parts of me that will never work right again. When I was shot through the hand, I can tell you there was a time probably three years after that occurred – this would have been about the time that I was getting ready to retire – when I asked a surgeon to just please remove my hand because the pain was just so excruciating, and I was going through surgeries where they would have to re-break bones, because when you tear up tendons and cartilage, it’s very hard for that to ever heal back. So that number I gave you probably would be a really close, accurate number.

“The other thing that we really want to look at is we’d like to see more emphasis on alternative therapies, on non-traditional medicine – on the ability to send a person to see a chiropractor or an acupuncturist in lieu of just tossing them a bottle of pills.”

U.S. Marine Corps Col. Curtis V. Ebitz, left, commanding officer, Marine Corps Air Station New River, assists Gunnery Sgt. Michael King, right, an ordnance staff noncommissioned officer in charge with Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, MCAS New River, during a coffee donation event on MCAS New River, June 9, 2020. The Military Order of the Purple Heart donated the coffee to show their appreciation for the continued services of Marines and sailors throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is the order’s position on the invisible wounds of war, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI) and PTSD?

We support traumatic brain injury as a qualifying Purple Heart injury. Posttraumatic stress disorder is a little more difficult for us, and the reason being is because at what point does it stop? We don’t want to devalue this medal. I see a lot of people that have got a PTSD diagnosis that were never in combat. Now it doesn’t mean their situation wasn’t bad, horrible, terrible, because it was. But this medal is for combat injuries. The physical injury that’s caused by a blast to the brain, now that one absolutely needed to be identified and needed to be included, because I can tell you, I’ve seen people that have come out of roadside bomb blasts and seemed just perfectly fine, and then months and in some cases years later, they start experiencing the residuals of that injury, whether it be massive headaches, dizziness, forgetfulness … and then some of them have strokes. I mean, there’s a lot of things that occur. So our position is we fully support traumatic brain injury as a qualifying factor, but obviously when it comes to post-traumatic stress disorder, that’s something that’s a little bit different, because every one of my members – we have 49,000 members – every single one of them has PTSD. Every single one in the Order. Now, some of them will say, ‘well, it doesn’t bother me,’ but every single one has a trait or a diagnosis or something. But it’s because of the injury. It’s because of the combat. Now, if the Department of Defense comes out and says, ‘hey, we’re going to award the Purple Heart for PTSD’ and that’s what they decide, we would offer our suggestion on that, but ultimately we’re not lawmakers. We support whatever they tell us to do; we would welcome all members that qualify for entry into the MOPH, and will treat them all with a level of dignity and respect.

What are some of the pressing concerns and key issues of importance of the MOPH?

The key issues of importance include access to health care, to have VA medical facilities that mirror each other around the country. Because I can have some recipients that go to a VA medical center in Huntington, West Virginia, and have a beautiful experience and no problems. But I can have them go to another VA medical facility and it’s wait times, rude staff, something. And some of them in the more rural, outlying areas seem to have more problems. Now, I don’t know if it’s harder to hire people, I don’t know what the deal is, but we’d like to see some standardization in the way that these facilities operate. Because, honestly, it would be different if it was some isolated cases. But it’s not isolated. These are consistent complaints that I see all the time. So that’s important, ensuring that we’re taking care of our veterans’ physical and emotional disabilities – not just our Purple Heart recipients; we like to feel that we’re looking out for all veterans.

The other thing that we really want to look at is we’d like to see more emphasis on alternative therapies, on non-traditional medicine – on the ability to send a person to see a chiropractor or an acupuncturist in lieu of just tossing them a bottle of pills. You know, we still have a way to go on prescriptions. They’ve fixed a lot of it, it’s not nearly as bad as it was, but we’re still dealing with that. But we have to totally correct that. And the only way to do that is to have the VA and the U.S. government be more willing to accept [and] embrace alternative therapies that will allow more options on the table.

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And one more thing: The third thing is we want to see better opportunities for veterans – especially our combatwounded veterans – to be able to transition into jobs. You know, in the federal and state sector, there’s a lot of this, ‘oh you can just go get a job in the Post Office,’ and while that may be partially true, it’s definitely not altogether true, and it’s a long, difficult process that generally requires way too much red tape. We’ve just got to do better. We have to do a better job. I don’t think that we’re failing, but I do think that we are coming to a point to where we could fail if we’re not careful.

What are some of the services and benefits the Military Order of the Purple Heart provides its members?

One of the tangible benefits we have, outside of camaraderie and the ability to network and work with other recipients, is that we have a life insurance policy. We have a network of veterans that work together on legislative issues. We have a legislative director who has built a team, and we go into the Military Order of the Purple Heart, and we simply ask what needs to be addressed. Each year, we come up with three legislative agendas, and we build up grassroots and grasstops efforts around those things.

The other thing that we have, if you go to our website at purpleheart.org, you’ll see that we have two very specific training programs. One is where we actually just partnered with Wounded Eagles, which is an organization that trains disabled veterans how to fly drones. We took it one step further with them and we wanted them to develop a program that helps to get our recipients and their members licensed so that they can be commercial drone pilots.

Another thing we have is a program that trains people in software development in IT [information technology], and that’s all free for members. And kids, grandkids, they can sign on to the website, and they can take these classes, which is really cool. It’s not something that’s normally done, but it’s something that I’ve started to do. And then this year, I got us a free life insurance policy – it’s like $2,000, a death and dismemberment policy – and then there’s a discount card that we give all the members as well, and we’re continuously working on improving those tangible benefits for members and their families.

One of the issues you have expressed concern for in the past is suicide, with respect to both veterans and their families, in that while the veterans’ suicide rate seems to be falling, that of family members is going up. Could you discuss that?

It’s terrible, yes. It’s very true. That’s the reason why I have included families in everything that we do. If the families can’t be involved, then just forget it. It won’t work. A lot of these veterans want to see their kids succeed, they want to see their spouses succeed. And here’s the real problem: The real problem is that we’ve got ourselves into this mindset, for lack of a better term, that it’s just all about the veteran and nothing else bothers us. But what really, really bothers us is the fact that we’ve got our family members that are out there suffering too, and nobody’s really doing anything to address that. So, at the Military Order of the Purple Heart, anything that we set up and do, we encourage a family-level participation, especially our youth … I believe that it is absolutely critical that we as veterans – every veteran organization out there – conduct outreach to our youth, and to our family members, and to make it more inclusive and less exclusive. So I say that being in an organization where the only way you can get in is to be combatwounded. I didn’t make those rules, but I do believe that does include our families. If I have 40,000 members, I can assure you I have three times that in family members that are affected by everything that we do to either improve or not improve the lives of our recipients of the Purple Heart. It’s just what we should do. We need to do a better job all the way around in my opinion.

What should I have asked that I didn’t ask?

I’m a believer that I’m going to be judged on how I treat my fellow man and woman. I can earn every medal, every accolade, everything you can imagine, but it doesn’t do me a bit of good if I’m not doing anything with it. So if someone calls me and says, ‘hey, this is a Silver Star recipient,’ if it gets me a chance to go and stand in front of a group of people and encourage them to support a program like the Military Order of the Purple Heart, or the Hershel Woody Williams Foundation, or a suicide awareness and prevention program, then buddy, you can put me on a chain, and you can tell people every single story you want to tell them about my service and combat as long as it will get me into a position to where it can be used for the betterment of other people. I tell people, get engaged: Whatever it is that you think is your strength, engage it, move on it, and don’t look back.

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