By Larry Welborn for The Orange County Register – A retired U.S. Marine stood ramrod straight in his dress blues in a courtroom here Friday as he was awarded the Purple Heart – nearly 65 years after he was wounded in war.

Frank J. McNerney, who is now 83, had a hint of a tear in his eyes when Lt. Col. James M. Morrisroe pinned the medal on his chest in front of about 80 friends and relatives – including his son, Orange County Superior Court Judge Daniel Barrett McNerney.

And then the white-haired hero, who still fit into the same dress uniform with white gloves that he wore during World War II, stood at attention as a USMC brass quintet played the Marine Corps hymn.

"I am humbled and honored," Frank McNerney told the crowd.

"I always hoped this would happen for him," said Judge McNerney, who spent 12 years researching archives, contacting his dad's old war buddies and applying for the honor his father earned but never received.

Frank McNerney said in an interview that a request for a Purple Heart for him likely slipped through the cracks during the heat of war back in 1944. He added that it probably bothered his son more than it did him that he never received the award.

But the ex-Marine, who lives in Michigan, also said he overwhelmed by the ceremony, and impressed with his son's tenacity and persistence in seeking the award.

The ceremony in the Central Justice Center was presided over by Judge William Monroe, a retired Marine. Two dozen other judges, including six who are ex-Marines, were also in attendance.

Rep. Ed Royce, a family friend who helped Judge McNerney by championing the application for a Purple Heart in the Pentagon, told the crowd in the master calendar courtroom that Frank McNerney – like many of his fellow Marines "gave the greatest, and for many, the last full measure of devotion for their country.

"Sgt. McNerney never received the Purple Heart he was due for the combat wound he suffered on Saipan," Royce said. "It has taken 65 years for that honor and recognition to catch up to him, and today, here in this courtroom, that moment has finally come."

In July of 1944, Marine Frank J. McNerney was severely injured when he fought with his mortar unit assigned to HQ Company in the steamy jungles of Saipan.

He had received a field promotion to sergeant – at age 19 – after his squad's leader was killed in what history recorded as the D-Day of the Pacific a few weeks earlier.

One night in late July, shrapnel from a bomb dropped from a Washing Machine Charlie – military slang for a small Japanese bomber – ripped open McNerney's right knee.

It tore through McNerney's cartilage and ligaments, buckling his leg and opening two-inch gaping hole below the knee cap. When a corpsman found him, his leg was contorted and he was bleeding profusely.

He was first treated on the battlefield, later rushed to a MASH field hospital, then airlifted for rehabilitation to Hawaii and later in the states. His fighting days were over.

Frank McNerney was honorably discharged from the Marines in September 1945, but for the rest of his life he has walked with a bit of a stiff-legged gait. He later received a 30 percent disability by the Department of Veteran's Affair because of his wound, and he has degenerative arthritis in his knee.

He was awarded three Presidential Unit Citations, the Asian-Pacific Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, and the Navy Combat Action Medal for his service to his country.

But for some reason, he never got the Purple Heart for being injured during war.

His son, Daniel Barrett McNerney, went to law school, became a prosecutor and then an Orange County Superior Court judge. He knew his Dad was a World War II veteran, but he knew little about the injury: his Dad – like many who fought in the Great War – did not like to talk about it.

But on a family vacation to the Virgin Islands in the mid 1990s, Frank McNerney finally told his about that night on Saipan some 50 years earlier.

And, according to Daniel McNerney, he said he was always a little bit bothered that he never got his Purple Heart.

The son decided that he was going to find a way get his Dad the Purple Heart he deserved.

It took more than a dozen years, several rejections by the Navy Department and a needle-in-the-haystack type of search for his dad's war buddies who could verify that Frank McNerney had indeed been injured in war.

Finally, in November 2008, the judge collected enough evidence to convince the Navy that his Dad deserved the Purple Heart.

In January, Congressman Royce relayed the news to Judge McNerney: His Dad was getting the Purple Heart.