In the News

Conway veteran honored with medals

By Eden Corley

Conway veteran Guy “Buddy” Carr received replacement medals he’d earned during his service in Korea.

Congressman French Hill awarded Carr the medals during a ceremony held at Brookdale Senior Living on Friday.

“We love celebrating [our veterans’s] service and one of the nicest, most touching ways to do that is to reunite a veteran with their medals,” Hill said.

Carr enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in December of 1950 and was trained to be a turret mechanic and a gunner.

“Everything I went to school for as a gunner, I didn’t need because they didn’t have gunners,” Carr explained during a conversation with his daughter.

Carr was positioned as a flight engineer, where he flew on 54 bombing missions on a B-26.

The primary targets during the missions were trains traveling at night.

Carr said he and his crew would direct bombs onto the tracks in the path of a train.

“We only crashed once,” he said.


The crash happened while returning from a mission.

The destination air strip was closed due to weather and they were re-routed to Seoul where the plane’s landing gear failed during preparation and they had to make a crash landing, Carr said.

Upon completing his 54th mission, Carr was sent home, having had more missions than anyone else in his barracks.

“I didn’t want to go home ahead of the crew that I flew with all the time,” he said. “They made me go home because I had 54 missions in.”

During his service in Korea, Carr earned the distinguished Flying Cross, two air medals, the United Nations Korean Service medal and the Korean Service medal.

“Mr. Carr truly exemplifies the warrior spirit that has seen our nation through trying times,” Hill said as he presented the medals to Carr.

Members of the Flying Cross also presented Carr with a distinguished Flying Cross license plate and hat, welcoming him into their group.