Jack Murphy is a true hero in every sense of the word.

Murphy, 78, was a member of the American forces that invaded Normandy Beach in France on June 6, 1944.  He was with the Army's Company B, 1st Battalion 115 Infantry Regiment 29th Division.

Murphy will receive a special medal Sunday, 3 p.m., at Tracy Park, along with about 40 other Scioto County veterans who participated in D-Day.

Murphy graduated from Minford High School in 1942.  He joined the Army the following January and served until 1945.  About a month after the invasion began, he was injured when a mortar exploded near him and was discharged thereafter.  "They postponed D-Day from June 5 to June 6," he said.  "So on the morning of June 6, we hit Omaha Beach.  We didn't hit the area that we were scheduled to hit, because ttere was so much confusion and chaos where we were going to hit."  Murphy was a 21-year-old private and armed only with an M-1 rifle.  All he had to eat that day was a candy bar.

"We hit pretty quick," he said.  "We didn't hit any opposition right at that point."

The sound of German gunfire would come through, as the American invaders pressed further toward land.  "I thought that day would never end," Murphy said.  "That night I wiggled back into some brush to stay camouflaged.  That's how I spent my first night in France."

The battalion's commander was killed the next day.  "But we did very well, we cleared the beach pretty quick," Murphy said.  "But then we started taking on the casualties at our position as we went through the hedge rows."

Murphy said he wasn't nervous when he first stepped off the amphibious vehicle.  "My thinking was that I was going to be for myself," he said.  "They told us that everybody has to be for themselves until we got in and got organized.  So I got off that boat and I took off."  After landing, Murphy headed for a bluff to wait for the others.  Murphy said he thinks of D-Day everyday.  "When I think about it today, it was an important event in my life," he said.  Murphy said when he accepts his medal Sunday, it will be in honor of those who served with him.

While Murphy's military service came many years ago, he is well-versed in the United States' current conflict in Afghanistan.  "We're doing the right thing, but we've got to get bin Laden," he said.  "We've got to kill him.  There has to be some sort of closure to this event.  We can't just go over there and bomb some hills and say, "Well, we've killed a bunch of them and pull out of there.  Thet won't mean nothing.  It won't mean a thing.  He's got to be killed."