When Sergeant Joe Hooper, one of Murphy’s pallbearers, died of natural causes in 1979, he had been long forgotten by the general public. Although he had returned from Vietnam as that war’s most decorated soldier, with 115 enemy dead to his credit, the holder of the Medal of Honor, two Silver Stars, the Bronze Star, and a staggering seven Purple Hearts, he discovered he had fought in a discredited war. Few mourned his passing. No one, save his family, remembers him today.
