LEWISTON – Long-delayed medals for three veterans were finally presented Saturday afternoon.

Leandre Buteau of Lewiston and Maurice Fournier of Auburn accepted numerous awards presented by Maine’s 2nd District Congressman Michael H. Michaud.

Rita Potvin, widow of Lionel Potvin of Lewiston, who died just a few weeks ago, accepted her husband’s medals.

Buteau said his service was “nothing too exciting,” but his World War II record contradicts that. He was in the U.S. Army from February 1943 to January 1946, and he first saw duty as a hospital medical serviceman in England, France, Belgium and Germany and later in the Pacific Theater of War.

“In the Pacific, I was lucky,” Buteau said. “When the Japanese surrendered, I was at Pearl Harbor. I went from there to Okinawa.” Buteau’s medals included the Good Conduct Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, and two Bronze Star attachments, the World War II Victory Medal, and the Honorable Service lapel button for World War II.

Fournier, who served with the U.S. Army in Korea from 1952 to 1954, remembered several months of duty leading up the signing of the Korean War Armistice on July 27, 1953.

“I was in communications carrying radios and stringing wires,” he said.

His medals included the Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Service Medal and Bronze Star attachment, the Combat Infantry award and the United Nations Service Medal.

For Potvin’s family, the occasion was bittersweet. His widow said Potvin knew before his death that the long-awaited honors were on the way.

“He was in the U.S. Air Force in Korea at the front for a whole year,” his widow said. Potvin’s service was 1952-1953.

“I waited for him. We were engaged,” Rita Potvin recalled.

They were married for 52 years.

In recent months, his wife said, “He wanted these medal so much, and he knew his time was just about up. When they called me, I said for sure I’m going to go and accept them in his honor.”

Congressman Michaud said, “One of the things we tend to forget is that the men and women who serve, particularly in combat, have spouses back home who are affected by their service as well. I really appreciate the support the spouses give our men and women in the military.”

Medals awarded to Potvin were the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Service Medal and the United Nations Service Medal.

The veterans’ medals were in glass-covered wooden presentation frames. Michaud said Matt Dubois, constituent service representative in his Lewiston office, took it on his own initiative to have the medals encased in the special frames.

Following the presentations, family members of all ages congratulated the veterans and formed into groups for photos.

Congressman Michaud told the veterans and their families that passage of legislation he had worked on recently in Washington could include language providing for new Veterans Administration out-patient service clinics in Lewiston-Auburn, as well as in Houlton and Dover-Foxcroft.

The medal presentations took place in the Lewiston Housing Authority’s Meadowview Community Hall.

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