Frank M. Davis, a chief petty officer exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, died from cancer last March.
On Sunday, his daughter - convinced her father was as much a victim of that war decades ago as the thousands of wounded soldiers who received Purple Heart medals - unveiled her own proposed decoration.The privately commissioned medal, "The Order of the Silver Rose," honors veterans killed or injured as a result of exposure to the Agent Orange defoliant and other chemicals during the war.
Mary Elizabeth Davis Marchand also wants to pressure the White House into reversing its current policy denying those veterans the Purple Heart.
"Being wounded by a biological or a chemical weapon has no less honor than being wounded by a knife, a sword, a bullet or a bomb," she said at a news conference.
"Basically, I'm trying to shame the president into following the law. He is breaking the law by not giving these men their Purple Hearts," Marchand added.
Marchand's father, who died at 75, was among thousands of veterans exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
Marchand says she has been repeatedly rebuffed in her efforts to get the Purple Heart policy for chemical and biological weapons injuries changed.
"So I created a medal that features a silver rose. What I'm trying to build is a monument to my father . . . and to make sure our men get rewarded for their sacrifice."
The idea for the new medal's design came from a jeweler and family friend who brought Davis a silver rose while he was in the hospital. The unofficial Order of the Silver Rose will be awarded posthumously on Veterans Day to Lt. Elmo Zumwalt III.
Zumwalt's father, the former commander of naval operations who ordered extensive use of Agent Orange in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, is scheduled to speak at the ceremony in Washington Nov. 11.