Medal Ceremony for Utah Veteran Mr. Roy Kehr
November 30, 2015
Yesterday I had the special opportunity of participating in a ceremony at the University of Utah honoring Mr. Roy Kehr, a Utah Veteran with a phenomenal story that has been decades in the making.
Mr. Roy Kehr is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army who served our nation during the Korean War. When discharged from the Army following the Korean War, Roy was aware that he had earned several medals during his service, but was so anxious to return home to his family he never initiated the process of receiving them. After many decades had passed, Roy was serving as a caretaker for his extremely ill son and was asked by his son about his experience during the Korean War—a time that Roy did not often discuss. It was then that the story of the medals surfaced, and Roy made a promise to his son that he would do what he could to receive the medals he had earned during the war.
After months of investigative work by a member of my staff and Mr. Kehr, we are happy to be here at the end of this long journey and help Roy fulfill his promise to his late son. I was honored to be able to present Roy with the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Service Medal with two bronze stars, and the United Nations Service Medal.
Like so many of his generation, Mr. Kehr didn’t serve so his name would appear in the newspaper or be recorded in a history book, he served so his children could pursue their dreams and write their own histories in our land of freedom and opportunity. While this remembering by our nation has been slow coming, it was an honor to participate in this special ceremony and help a father fulfill a promise to his son.
