WARNER ROBINS - The quiet, dignified ceremony befit the man. Danny Gilleland, The Telegraph

John L. Lester of Jacksonville in Telfair County on Monday was awarded the Bronze Star Medal more than 60 years after the infantryman earned the medal fighting in Italy during World War II.

The 85-year-old former Buffalo Soldier, dressed in his WWII-era uniform, gave a snappy salute to medal presenter Col. Brad Heithold and, with emotion creeping into his voice, thanked family, friends and others for coming to the ceremony at the Museum of Aviation at Robins Air Force Base.

"I can't remember all the names and I don't want to leave anyone out, but thank you Mrs. (Iris) Myles, Judy Harris, Bill Boyd and on down the line," Lester said.

Lester enlisted in April 1941 and joined the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment based at Fort Benning in Columbus. His unit was sent to the New Hebrides islands in the South Pacific after the Pearl Harbor attack, and he stayed there 16 months, he said.

After coming back to the states, Lester said, he and 182 others in his unit were assigned to the 92nd Infantry Division and shipped off to Italy. He saw action mainly in northwest Italy, in the Liguria region, as Allied forces doggedly pushed the Germans from the country.

Lester had been cited by his then-commander, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, for "exemplary action" in leading his platoon into battle over a two-day period in the early months of 1945.

The citation reads: "Staff Sergeant Lester placed himself in a commanding position and without regard for his personal safety, took charge and ... directed all small arms fire in his area until the attack was repulsed. His determined devotion to duty was a credit to the tradition of the Armed Forces."

Lester, as with other black servicemen during World War II, was serving in a segregated unit. His unit was part of the 370th Infantry Regiment. The U.S. Armed Forces didn't integrate until ordered to do so by President Harry Truman on July 26, 1948.

Following his discharge from the military in November 1945, Lester returned to Telfair County but could not find work. He moved to Detroit, where an older sister lived, and ended up working at Ford Motor Co. He and his family lived there until he moved back to Georgia after his retirement in 1980.

His son John Lester Jr. said that while growing up he didn't hear his father talk freely about his wartime experiences.

An Army veteran himself, he said that from time to time while watching a war movie on TV his father would relate incidents that happened to him.

"He told me some amazing things about his time in the war," John Lester Jr. said. "It was amazing for me as a child to know he went through something I was familiar with because I had seen it on TV.

"It's my father, and he was there, I remember thinking."

Lester said that during combat one really doesn't have time to think, only to react.

"People are getting killed all around you, you don't know from minute to minute if you were going to die yourself," he said. "You have hope."

Lester's hope was stronger than Nazi bullets, and he was able to make it through the war with just a scar on his lip from a piece of shrapnel.

He went about the business of work and raising a family without a thought of a Bronze Star.

Retired Army Lt. Col. David McClellan, who started the ball rolling for Lester's medal after reading a story by Bill Boyd in The Telegraph in June of last year, said there wasn't a mechanism in place in 1947 when the Defense Department made actions qualifying for the medal retroactive to Dec. 7, 1941. And many veterans eligible for the medal suffered when their combat records were destroyed in a 1973 fire, he said.

"It's been a yearlong odyssey, but here we find ourselves today," McClellan said Monday.

State Sen. Ross Tolleson, R-Perry, said Lester exemplified a strength of character found in many of his generation.

"He didn't come to his duty looking for an honor, but the nation is looking for you, people who gave so much and asked nothing in return," Tolleson said.

Heithold said Lester's story was repeated countless times in Tom Brokaw's book, "The Greatest Generation."

"We sent them off to do America's dirty business, to kill the enemy," Heithold said. "They were who the nation needed at that time."

Lester Jr. said, "I'm just real glad for him," adding that he felt the hand of the divine in his father's safe return from the war.

"God was there, and he came back," he said.  Jake Jacobs , Macon Telegraph - Macon,GA,USA