Wicker honors World War II vet
RIDGELAND — World War II veteran Howard “Jeff” Jefferson Parker, Jr., was presented with a Combat Action Ribbon for his service in the Navy Armed Guard during World War II by U.S. Senator Roger Wicker this past Friday.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to thank people who have stepped forward, even decades and decades ago, to keep us free and to win our peace and freedom again,” Wicker said. “Mr. Parker served admirably under very trying conditions in the Pacific, under active fire. Only about fifteen percent of servicemen actually see combat as he did. He is very deserving of the Combat Action Ribbon.”
Wicker presented Parker with the award in the lobby of the Ridgeland Place assisted living facility on Orchard Park in a 1 p.m. ceremony on Friday, Oct. 28.
Wicker’s office said Parker was awarded the ribbon after extensive research of his service records showed he had engaged in combat while serving as a member of the Navy Armed Guard in 1944.
Howard Jefferson Parker, Jr., who went by H. Jefferson, or more commonly, Jeff, was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on January 22, 1926.
Parker entered the Navy Armed guard as a gunner a day before his eighteenth birthday. The Armed Guard served on and protected Merchant Marine ships.
During World War II, Parker helped protect war-related cargo being transported from the West Coast of the U.S. to the South Pacific according to Wicker’s office. Wicker’s office said he helped transport everything from food to lumber to ammunition.
His convoy came under attack by Japanese submarines and kamikaze aircraft in the vicinity of Guam and Palau.
At the end of the war, the mission changed to transporting former Japanese POWs from China back to Japan.
He was honorably discharged from the Navy in June 1945.
After college graduation he taught and then became an elementary school principal in Pine Bush, N.Y., retiring in 1982. In 2014, he relocated to Ridgeland with his wife, Joyce H. Parker, who died this year. The Parkers were married for 68 years.
Parker has three adult sons, 12 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren.
The Combat Action Ribbon was established by the Department of the Navy in 1969. Created at the height of the Vietnam War, the ribbon is both the most highly regulated and the most retroactively applied award in both the Navy and Marine Corps.
When determining eligibility, it takes intensive investigative research by records technicians and the service branch to ensure that a veteran is entitled to the Combat Action Ribbon.
The criteria set by the Department of the Navy requires bona fide evidence that the member was engaged in direct combat with an enemy. Wicker’s office assisted the Parker family with applying for the award.