After 80 years, daughter of World War II hero from Aurora finds closure in medal ceremony

Anna Green Showerman was only 3 years old when her family got the news that her father, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. John William Green of Aurora, had been killed in action during World War II.

It took five years for Green’s body to be sent back to his family in the Fox Valley to be buried, according to Jacob Zimmerman, superintendent of the Kane County Veterans Assistance Commission.

But the medals Green earned during his time in World War II, which were supposed to be issued to his family, never arrived.

Now 83, Showerman said she has finally gotten closure in her father’s story.

On Tuesday, Showerman, of Batavia, received her father’s medals, chief among them a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, from U.S. Army representatives at Batavia VFW Post 1197. She was surrounded by generations of her family as she held, just for a moment, each of her father’s medals in her hands.

“Mostly, for me, this whole thing was about my mom,” said Patricia Showerman, who is Anna Showerman’s daughter. “She never got to know her father, and she’s always wanted to know where she came from and how her biology fits in.”

While Anna Showerman had a stepfather nearly her whole life, she said that she started to wonder more about her birth father when she saw how tall her son was growing up to be.

That search for records is what started Showerman down a long path that ended at Tuesday’s ceremony. She has now learned all she wants to know about her father, she said.

“It’s the end, the end of my story,” Showerman said about the ceremony.

In late 2019, on a whim, she enlisted the help of Zimmerman to help her search for records about her father.

Showerman was only at the Kane County Government Building on Batavia Avenue in Geneva to pay her taxes, according to previous reporting. But when she noticed Zimmerman’s office, she decided to stop in, she previously said.

The process of getting hold of Green’s military records took a long time because they are all on paper, according to Zimmerman. Plus, he said the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t make the process any easier.

It took him upwards of three years just to get those paper records, he said. Then, the records needed to be sent to an Army department that certified the records and prepared the official orders authorizing the medals to be issued to surviving family members.

Finally, those orders needed to be sent to a different Army department that actually issues the medals, according to Zimmerman. He said the process ordinarily can take 18 months or more, but he and the family reached out to U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, to speed things up.

Col. Daniel Mitchell, who is the commanding officer of the U.S. Army Garrison Rock Island Arsenal, was sent alongside others from the garrison to present the medals to Showerman at Tuesday’s ceremony.

In a speech, Mitchell said he was honored to be a part of the ceremony and called Showerman a “hero” for looking into her father’s records and military service. He also said Zimmerman was “instrumental” in making the ceremony happen.

John William Green was a part of the 28th Infantry Division, 112 Regiment, Second Battalion, of the U.S. Army, according to Mitchell. He said that means Green arrived in Normandy after D-Day in 1944, moved across France and into Germany, fought in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest and died in the Battle of the Bulge.

Although records differ on Green’s exact age, he appears to have just turned 21 when he died in that battle.

Sgt. Major James Brown, also of Garrison Rock Island Arsenal, read orders that verified Green received the Bronze Star Service Medal, the Purple Heart, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the European–African–Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with three bronze service stars, the World War II Victory Medal, the Presidential Unit Citation, the Combat Infantryman’s Badge and the Honorable Service Lapel Button for World War II Service.

As Brown read the order for each medal, Mitchell handed that medal to Showerman, who held it softly in both hands before handing it back.

Showerman also received a letter from Duckworth, which was delivered by a representative of the senator.

The event had more community support than Showerman expected, she said. Representatives from nearby VFWs, elected officials and even the Boy Scouts showed up to the ceremony.

Zimmerman said the ceremony, which made right something that happened around 80 years ago, is a testament to how much the nation cares about its veterans.

For the family, the ceremony was about closure for Showerman and honoring the memory of Green, according to Sandy Showerman-Gast, another of Showerman’s daughters. She said the ceremony made her think about families in the same situation who had a family member lost to history.

“To me, it was really just nice to say, ‘OK, he was here. He was alive. He fought and served for our country and died,’” Showerman-Gast said. “It’s like, he mattered because we’re all here today as a family.”

rsmith@chicagotribune.com