James Otto Recieves Purple Heart

Being a recipient of a Purple Heart often means the person was awarded this in the name of the President due to an injury or death that resulted from service. However, this was not the case for Country singer and U.S. Navy veteran James Otto, who was recently given the honorable medal by a U.S. Marine.

 

Otto saw the Marine at his Oct. 15 show in Dallas, whom he had previously spoken with before that event. The last time the two met, Otto invited the Marine on his tour bus to chat.

 

"He was really moved by the song 'In Color' and he had given me his POW hat with his Iraq campaign medal and his Afghanistan campaign medal," Otto said in a recent interview with The Boot. "He had been wounded and a prisoner-of-war for 18 months. People don't really realize how many guys out there have been wounded or taken hostage and been through those nightmares."

 

The reason Otto performs "In Color," which he co-wrote and Jamey Johnson made famous, is due to the history he shares with such veterans and how he is able to relate with the emotional affects taken on those who serve and their families. This is also the reason Otto co-wrote a song about the only two people who have laid down their lives for others – ‘Soldiers and Jesus.’

 

"When I sang 'Soldiers and Jesus' [at the Dallas show], he ended up saluting me through the whole song," Otto said of the Marine. "It really touched me that it meant something to him."

 

The two met up later, and as they were talking, the Marine placed a Purple Heart in Otto’s hands and asked him to keep it.

 

"I said, 'I can't take this. Why are you giving this to me? I don't deserve this. This is yours,'" Otto said. "He said he had several and wanted me to have it...I'm really honored, and I'll be proud to keep it for the rest of my life."

 

In the past, Otto has received other servicemen’s dog tags when they were thrown on stage, but never anything as impacting as the Purple Heart.

"I am a Christian man who served in the military myself. When things like this happen, I know the song is reaching the guys it should reach,” Otto said. "When I wrote 'Soldiers and Jesus," I loved the song, but I debated whether I was the right guy to deliver it. My wife and others pushed me to cut the song because they said, 'You know how closely you're related to the military,'" Otto said. "The truth and heart of the message rings true to me especially the line 'one fights for my life and one fights for my soul.'

 

Source: TheBoot.com