Raymond G. Murphy

Captain Raymond Gerald "Jerry" Murphy (January 14, 1930 – April 6, 2007) was the 39th United States Marine to receive the Medal of Honor for heroism in the Korean War. He was decorated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a White House ceremony on October 27, 1953. He earned the Nation's highest military decoration for heroic action for valor in the Reno-Vegas fighting of February 1953.

Raymond Gerald Murphy was born in Pueblo, Colorado, on January 14, 1930, to Thomas and Mame Murphy. He graduated from Pueblo Catholic High School in 1947. He attended Fort Lewis Junior College in Durango, Colorado, for two years before transferring to Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado. While in college, he played varsity football, basketball, & baseball, and worked as a swimming instructor in Durango in the summer of 1950. In 1951, Murphy graduated from Adams State College with a degree in physical education. He joined the Marine Corps Reserve in May 1951 and entered Officers Candidate School at Parris Island, South Carolina, the following month.

Commissioned a second lieutenant in September 1951, he was then ordered to Officers' Basic School at Quantico, Virginia. Completing the course the following February, he was transferred to Camp Pendleton, California, for advanced training before embarking for Korea in July 1952. In Korea, Second Lieutenant Murphy served with the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division until he was wounded in the action where he earned the Medal of Honor. After treatment aboard the Danish hospital ship Jutlandia, the American hospital ship USS Repose, and later in Japan, he was returned to the U. S. Naval Hospital, Mare Island, California, in March 1953. He was promoted to first lieutenant that same month.

He returned to Pueblo after his discharge from the hospital and was released from active duty April 7, 1953. On October 27, President Dwight Eisenhower presented Murphy and six others with the Medal of Honor during a ceremony at the White House. He is one of four Medal of Honor recipients from Pueblo, Colorado, the others being William J. Crawford, Drew Dennis Dix, and Carl L. Sitter. Murphy was promoted to captain on December 31, 1954, and discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve five years later on December 28, 1959.

After the war, Murphy moved to New Mexico. From 1974 until his retirement, he worked as a counselor for the Veterans Administration and became the Chief of Veterans Services. After retiring from the VA Jerry stayed on as a volunteer at the hospital until 2005. He and his wife, Maryann, raised three sons, John, Tim, and Michael, and a daughter, Eleanor.

Murphy died on April 6, 2007, in the Veterans Administration Nursing Home in Pueblo at age 77, after a long illness. He was buried at Santa Fe National Cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Prior to his death, a bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate to name the Veterans' hospital in Albuquerque the Raymond G. Murphy Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The bill was passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President Bush on July 5, 2007.