A Canoga Park coffee shop served as a ceremonial hall Thursday for a former Marine who 72 years earlier earned a medal fighting a critical battle in World War II.
A surprised Samuel Leland Anderson, Jr., 91, received the Purple Heart in a touching ceremony at Henri’s Coffee Shop after his daily visit with friends over coffee.
At 9:14 a.m., as Anderson sat at a white table at the back of Henri’s, Marine Lt. Col. Aaron Doty read the medal citation and pinned it on Anderson’s black T-shirt.
“Today I have the honor of closing a loop that should have been closed long ago,” Doty said.
“Thank you. I couldn’t be more surprised. I never cared I didn’t get the Purple Heart, but now I got it and that’s fine,” said Anderson, who has lived in the same Woodland Hills house for 50 years. “I want to thank you all for coming.”
Anderson was a 19-year-old serviceman when he arrived on Iwo Jima to fight in the battle that raged in February and March of 1945. He fought as a rifleman for 21 days before suffering a concussion when a munition exploded nearby.
More than 600 Marines were killed and about 1,700 were wounded in the fighting.
Memories of that time crop up every now and then, he said.
“The Marines trained me good. They taught you how to kill and take care of your buddies. If it was night, you never moved. If you moved you could get shot. But I survived it. I was a survivor,” said Anderson.
Anderson was living in Venice at the time of the war and went into the service with some friends, said his son Todd, who organized the event. Three of them ended up in the battle.
One, Luke Mandemaker, was killed two days into the fight. The other, Red Tarabella, was operating the ramp on the landing craft dropping the Marines into the ocean and called out Lee Anderson’s nickname, “Peewee,” as he hit the beach.
Tarabella would return home and marry Anderson’s sister, Joan. Both are now deceased.
Todd Anderson is a retired Glendale Police Department lieutenant. His son, Nick, has been on the force for about six years, and his daughter, Erin, is a 911 operator. Seven officers from the department attended the medal ceremony.
Todd Anderson said his father never talked about his experience in the war. But about two years ago, he was going through some of his father’s records and discovered he was wounded on March 11, 1945, and had been awarded some medals.
But not the Purple Heart — the U.S. military decoration reserved for those wounded in battle, or given posthumously to next of kin for those killed in action.
Now Lee Anderson has it. His family also presented him with a shadow box containing it and four other medals, pins and his corporal patch from his time in the service.
“It was just awesome,” said Todd Anderson — also a veteran — who served in the Air Force for 27 years on active duty and in the reserves. “The medals were important to him.”
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