The Shadow
Master Sgt. Robert Trice of the U.S. Army received a Purple Heart during a ceremony held Wednesday morning.
The brief ceremony was held on the campus of Boys Home of Virginia, in front of the Ben Parrott Dining Hall.
Trice is a former Boys Home resident and currently works as Boys Home’s director of support services.
Col. (Ret.) Paul Linken-hoker of the U.S. Army Reserves presented Trice with the Purple Heart. Linkenhoker recalled that he first met Trice when Trice was a student at Callaghan Elementary School in the late 1980s, where Linkenhoker was serving as principal.
“I cannot tell you what a tremendous honor it is for me today to present this award,” said Col. Linken-hoker. “I’ve presented a lot of awards to a lot of individuals — never the Purple Heart, and never to a former student.
“This is something I will cherish for the rest of my life,” added Linkenhoker, “and feel so proud that Bobby asked me to do that.”
Master Sgt. Trice received the award for wounds sustained in combat April 7, 2011, while serving in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan.
The attack blew out his eardrums, and he suffered a traumatic brain injury which left him with a 4×9 millimeter lesion on the right frontal lobe of his brain. Subsequently, he went through 10 months of rehabilitation at Fort Belvoir’s National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injuries.
“To this day, there are things I either can’t do, or I have to put in a significant effort to do [things] that were once second nature,” Trice said. “That’s just a reality that I’ll have to work on and live with the rest of my life.
“Despite all of this,” he added, “I had the honor of serving alongside some great men and women in the United States Armed Forces which is something I wouldn’t trade for the world.”
Trice retired in September of 2017 with just over 20 years of service. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1997.
Members of the Curtis A. Smith Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1033 in Covington assisted with the ceremony. Post members in attendance were Linkenhoker, Bill Atherholt, Tommy O’Conner, Alfred Paxton, Dale Comer and Shawn Wright.
