The Park Hills City Council voted Monday night to enshrine the city as a Purple Heart city, honoring members of the armed services who have been wounded or killed in the line of duty.
“I’m excited about this,” said City Council Member Pam Spoor, who informed attendees at Monday night’s meeting that her husband has been a recipient of two Purple Hearts.
Purple Hearts are special medals granted to armed service members who have sustained wounds or have died in the line of duty, specifically after April 5, 1917. The honor is traceable back to the country’s founding when President George Washington first established a Badge Military Merit for soldiers in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
The Purple Heart moniker is traceable to the 1930s when Washington’s badge was revived under the new Purple Heart designation, initially for U.S. Army personnel. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would later extend eligibility to all armed service members in 1941, and President Harry Truman would later retroactively extend eligibility of the honor back to 1917 to cover armed service members who served in the First World War.
As part of the city’s new designation, it will proclaim a Purple Heart Day for the city, which will be observed on Memorial Day, May 25.