OSHKOSH, Wis. (WFRV) – Winnebago County Marine veteran Roy Rogers’ time in the military came to an end with a 15-month hospital stay at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital in Waukegan, IL.
Before arriving there, a landmine detonated in front of him in Chu Lai, South Vietnam, blowing apart a piece of his left hand and foot, littering that side of his body with shrapnel.
“It hit my rifle and disintegrated my rifle and part of me,” Rogers said. “I was lucky.”
After requiring nine operations during that hospital stay, no one would have blamed him for wanting to forget those days, leaving them behind to never be thought of again.
He has not. In fact, Rogers has spent nearly six decades working for and with veterans in Winnebago County and throughout the state.
“I may have stepped on a landmine, but I’m still here and I’m still fighting for everything,” he said.
Still fighting for fellow veterans, Rogers has spent the better part of the past year working to make Highway 21 in Winnebago County a Purple Heart Memorial Highway.
“I worked for about 10 months asking the Winnebago County executive and our state governor if they’d approve making that a state highway designation, and it came to pass and I’m so happy,” Rogers said.
While the county board and state review and approve of the motion to make the designation, it takes citizen action to organize it, and at least one veteran from the county to lose life or limb for it.
“There was probably 60 people in Winnebago County that were probably killed in Vietnam,” Rogers said.
The effort that Rogers spent on getting the designation is not lost on Winnebago County Executive Gordon Hintz, who spoke at the ceremony Saturday, along with Rogers, at the intersection of Highway 21 and Oakwood Road.
“It’s important to recognize that we have people who have served, given life and limb, from Winnebago County,” Hintz said. “But it really took a citizen, a veteran himself, Roy Rogers, to push this forward, and the county was really happy to build off his work and make today happen.”
“I’m thrilled that what I started actually came to pass,” Rogers said.
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He is hopeful that people driving on Highway 21 remember not the effort it took to get the designation passed, but rather the sacrifices women and men in the military made and continue to make.
“Hopefully, everyone that drives on Highway 21 in Winnebago County realizes that a person had to be combat wounded in order to put that sign there,” he said.
Wisconsin has allowed highways to be designated as Purple Heart Memorial Highways since 1994. The Purple Heart was first instituted in 1782 by then-General George Washington.
