Village in France honors southwest Missouri veteran

SARCOXIE, Mo. -- A French village has inducted a man from this southwest Missouri town into its local museum as a hero for his service in helping liberate the area during World War II.

Lloyd David Lewis died in May 2008 at age 86. But as a 23-year-old Army private, he was wounded during a raid near a mill complex between the northeastern French towns of Lixing and Grosbliederstroff.

Eleven other soldiers were wounded in the attack and four were killed.

Lewis returned to southwest Missouri, becoming a vocational-education teacher and a draftsman for the engineering firm Allgeier, Martin and Associates Inc. in Joplin. He received a bronze star in 2003.

On March 21, the village of Grosbliederstroff held a ceremony for Lewis. Lewis' four children -- Sheryl Colson of Joplin, Sheila Louise Lewis of Grove, Okla., Jeff Lewis of Edmond, Okla., and Lloyd Lewis Jr. of Owasso, Okla. -- made the almost 5,000-mile trip to Grosbliederstroff for the ceremony.

"Maybe one in a million kids get to go where their father fought in the war and have the ability to sort through it," Sheila Lewis said.

Colson, who was a baby when her father fought in the war, said she learned a lot about her father's service during the visit.

"I was just so overwhelmed with what they had put together for us, even if they maybe didn't understand everything I was saying to them," Colson said. "Dad would really have been pleased."

For the ceremony in the Town Hall, residents had set up a photo of Lloyd Lewis, a copy of the Purple Heart he received, a flag and an emblem from his unit, the Trailblazers 70th Infantry Division. The town also has a uniform that Lewis wore in the Army.

Lewis was hit in the legs by machine gun fire during the raid in France. Only freezing temperatures kept him from bleeding to death, Lewis later wrote while in a military hospital.

Lewis returned to Europe a number of times over the years to revisit the sites he first saw while in the Army.