BP on track to Purple Heart City status

Blooming Prairie is on its way to becoming a Purple Heart City.
Members of the city council approved a motion at the July 12 meeting to have Mayor Curt Esplan complete and file the paperwork required for the designation.
“We have a number of Purple Heart recipients,” Esplan said at the meeting, and the move is a way to honor those veterans.
That includes the mayor’s brother, Ken Esplan, who earned a Purple Heart in 1970, while serving in Vietnam.
The purpose is to honor and remember any member of the U.S. Armed Forces who is wounded or killed in combat; the Purple Heart is the nation’s oldest military medal. It was created by Gen. George Washington in 1782, and was then known as the Badge of Military Merit.
Because no consistent records have been kept, there is no comprehensive list of Purple Heart recipients; one estimate puts the number at 1.8 million. Records were sometimes lost during wartime, when headquarters were overrun; many Army and Army Air Force records were lost in a fire at a records center in 1973.
Signs on the edge of town will announce the status as a Purple Heart City.