A Guthrie County veteran received his Purple Heart on Memorial Day, nearly 11 years after the events that caused him to be qualified for the medal.

Dustin Teays was a combat engineer in the army reserves, and on June 23, 2013, his unit was in Afghanistan. He says that his group was deployed on a night mission to clear routes of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to help keep other convoys and civilians safe.

Teays mentions that during the mission, one of their lead trucks drove over an IED at the beginning of the night, with another truck finding and deactivating another. He explains that they then continued to head back to their forward operating base, when his truck ran over an IED that, by his best guess, was roughly 150 to 200 pounds, and left the truck he was in, in a crater. Teays tells Raccoon Valley Radio about the experience.

“Some people may describe that when something bad is happening to you, time can kind of slow down a little bit. And that’s one thing I can remember, is as soon as the bomb went off underneath of us, I could see dust particles in the air, and time was moving very slowly. And I could actually feel the heat from the blast around the truck. It was definitely something that I will never forget. And then as quickly as that happened, I woke up because I was knocked unconscious.”

Teays shares his feelings on receiving his Purple Heart.

“So, it was a big honor. There was a lot that was going on. They were presenting flags to families, and then I was able to receive my Purple Heart in front of everyone, which, like I said, it’s just a big honor to be able to be a part of something so important and so much bigger than myself and bring awareness to what Memorial Day is all about for families everywhere, as well as veterans like myself. So it was a huge honor.”

According to the United Service Organizations, the Purple Heart is presented to US military service members who either were wounded or killed as a result of enemy action while serving, and is a solemn distinction signifying that a service member has greatly sacrificed themselves, or paid the ultimate price while in the line of duty.