Orlando honors wounded as new ‘Purple Heart City’
Designation welcomes recipients of military decoration
Orlando police officer Nathan Robbins had just gotten into an armored vehicle after completing a patrol in Afghanistan when an explosion launched them upward.
The 200-pound explosive device left him and other soldiers wounded in October 2011 and began a 2 1⁄2-year recovery period for Robbins, now a three-year Orlando Police Department veteran.
Robbins was honored for his service Thursday alongside about a dozen other Purple Heart recipients as Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer declared the city a Purple Heart City.
“It was like a really bad roller coaster,” Robbins said.
“Had it been another vehicle, the results could have been a lot worse.”
The designation is meant to welcome and honor recipients of the military's oldest military decoration to Orlando. The city will place signs on Corrine Drive near Veterans Memorial Park and on Lee Vista Boulevard at State Road 417 near the Orlando VA Medical Center to commemorate it.
“We thought it would be most appropriate if we put them by the Veterans Memorial area and the VA hospital, so veterans or people that are coming to honor our veterans ... will see the signs,” Dyer said.
Orlando joins Polk County, Davenport, DeLand and the state, which are among scores of governments to make the declaration.
OPD also employs Michael Denton, a Purple Heart recipient who also was awarded a Silver Star, and retired officer Richard Tiffany received one for his Vietnam service.
Dana Gowen, a member of the Orlando chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, said the group has 154 members, but there are likely numerous other recipients scattered throughout the region who haven’t joined.
The Order is a service organization that provides support officers to help wounded soldiers home from combat fill out voluminous paperwork to help them receive VA benefits.
While the recognition is appreciated, Gowen said he hopes Orlando finds more ways to serve veterans and Purple Heart recipients.
He has suggested volunteers with the neighborhood watch program be given addresses of Purple Heart recipients so they can periodically check in to see how they’re doing.
“A lot of these guys suffer from a variety of degrees for the rest of their lives,” said Gowen, who received the Purple Heart after an injury sustained in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Vietnam. “For the dead, the war is over for them. For us, a lot of it does continue.”
On stage at OPD headquarters, Robbins stood shoulder to shoulder with veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Global War on Terror.
While his injuries were traumatic, he said others have had it worse.
“I look at it as I just went to work that day,” Robbins said.
“It’s nice to be in the company of heroes.”