Thursday,  May 2, 2013 • Vol. 14--No. 286 • 24 of 41 •  Other Editions

(Continued from page 23)

the Battle of the Hedgerows and the Battle of the Bulge," Johnson said. "Charles experienced them all firsthand."
• The Purple Heart was created in 1782 as the Badge of Military Merit by George Washington, but was ignored for nearly 150 years until it was reintroduced in 1932 on the 200th anniversary of Washington's birth.
• The nearly 2-inch-long medal features a gold bust of Washington on a purple background with a gold border, suspended from a white and purple ribbon. The inscription on back reads: "For military merit."
• The Bronze Star, a 1½-inch-wide star engraved with "heroic or meritorious achievement," hangs from a red ribbon with a vertical blue and white stripe down the center.
• Bledsoe, who joined the Army immediately after graduating high school and served in Company F of the 273rd Infantry Regiment, said he now has a lot of military medals.
• "Senator Johnson let me ask you a question, what am I going to do with all the medals?" he asked.
• "You'll keep them," Johnson replied. "And when the time comes, as it will for all

of us, we can hand down the medals to our kids and grandkids."
•

Fargo city leaders wrap up another flood fight
DAVE KOLPACK,Associated Press

• FARGO, N.D. (AP) -- Fargo's deputy mayor gave the all-clear sign Wednesday when he scrapped his yellow safety vest to mark the crest of a spring flood that while ultimately docile had residents heaving thousands of sandbags and workers building miles of clay levees for the fourth time in five years.
• Starting with the record-setting flood of 2009, Tim Mahoney has been donning the vest on the first day the Red River spills its banks. He takes it off when the water stops rising, as apparently happened Wednesday when the Red leveled off at about 33 feet, which is 15 feet above flood stage but at least 5 feet below earlier predictions.
• "It's a good thing. He needs a shower," joked Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker, the man who first told Mahoney to wear the vest as a badge of honor for a community beaten down but not defeated by chronic flooding.
• As hundreds of city, county, state and federal employees worked to tame the country's "little river that roars," as labeled by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gen.

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