Disco Bomb Victim Gets Purple Heart
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WEST BERLIN — The U.S. ambassador to West Germany, Richard R. Burt, presented a Purple Heart medal Wednesday to a U.S. soldier badly injured in the April 5 bombing of a West Berlin discotheque.
The ceremony took place in a West Berlin hospital where Staff Sgt. James Goins, 25, of Ellerbe, N.C., was being treated. Both his legs were amputated after the blast, which killed two people and injured more than 200.
The Purple Heart is awarded to U.S. soldiers killed or wounded as a direct result of enemy action, and Burt said the United States was “in an undeclared war with terrorists.”
The United States said it had evidence that the Libyan diplomatic mission in East Berlin was linked to the attack, and 10 days later U.S. aircraft carried out an air attack on Libya.
The medal citation blamed a “hostile force” for the disco attack.
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