Man Survives Brutal Beating, 60-Year Wait To Get Military Medals

PENN VALLEY (CBS13) — An 82-year-old veteran finally received an honor overdue for six decades after surviving a beating that nearly killed him.

He didn't think he'd ever live to see the day, then finally three weeks ago the military medals he waited nearly 60 years for came in the mail.

Two Decembers ago Jim Wright went on a mission to get the military medals he'd earned in the 1950s.

"It is a recognition that I deserve because I enlisted. I served well," Wright said.

Jim enlisted in the Army during the Korean War and never received his good conduct and marksman medals. He says officers never signed off on the paperwork.

"So that's when I contacted Tom McClintock's office," Wright said.

The military told Jim he needed a congressman's support to finally get what he deserved. And he was waiting on the response when he nearly died.

"It was awful it was awful," Jim's wife Vera said. "All the blood."

Last April as Vera took a nap, a robber repeatedly beat her husband with a tire iron in their home.

"He survived, thank goodness," Vera said.

Just three days after the beating, CBS13 sat down with Jim at the hospital.

Despite being badly beaten, he couldn't stop talking about those medals.

"Am I going to die before I get my good conduct medal?" Jim asked.

But he didn't, and a year after he started his mission, the military sent Jim his medals.

He says it's all he thought about as he was being beaten.

"They engraved my name on the back of the good conduct medal," Jim said with pride.

A judge sentenced the man who beat Jim, Dillon McMahon, to more than 11 years behind bars, but he faces life in prison for carjacking and kidnapping two women. His accomplice is serving one year in jail.

Jim spent three and a half weeks in the hospital before coming home but he's made a full recovery.