Notice Nearby

Decorations register · Notice Nearby

No rights-safe contemporary likeness is on file. The record is the decoration and the writing, not an invented face.

Vernon J. Baker

1919–2010

First Lieutenant

Weapons Platoon, Company C, 370th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Infantry Division; Castle Aghinolfi / Viareggio, Italy, 5–6 April 1945

Documented decorations

Vernon Joseph Baker’s Purple Heart and Bronze Star Medal are named in the U.S. Army’s own account of the decorations he held before January 13, 1997. Army News Service, reporting his Arlington burial, states that he was originally awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Distinguished Service Cross for his service, and that full recognition as a Medal of Honor recipient came fifty-two years later after a government study of World War II awards to African American Soldiers.

The Medal of Honor citation — Castle Aghinolfi, near Viareggio, Italy, April 5–6, 1945 — is the public record of the machine-gun nests, the observation post, the draw, and the minefield advance the next night. This decorations page will not reprint that citation as a short story. It records that the same first lieutenant of the 370th Infantry already held a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star Medal in the Army’s published telling of his original awards.

He is not yet on the World War II war roll. A Red Cross career and an Idaho retirement are public fact. They are not military decorations.

This name is not yet on a war-roll essay. The decorations above are the documented public record this register will stand on until that essay is written.

A publisher register — not a verification

This decorations register is publisher-curated from public records — Medal of Honor Society citations, published general orders, and official Army, Navy, and Marine Corps biographies. It is not a verified-veteran product. Notice Nearby does not certify service and does not issue badges.

A paid or unpaid memorial does not enroll anyone here. Checkout, VET50, and a family’s mention of service on an obituary are not applications to this list. We add a name only when a public official source names the decoration.

Claiming a decoration that was not awarded is stolen valor. It is a disrespect to those who earned the medal and, in some cases, a federal crime. This register will not invent an award to fill a page.

These pages are a historical register. They are not Legal Publication, not a newspaper notice, and not proof that a statute was satisfied.