Bates Sr, Ralph Stoney

Burnard Winburn, USMC MGYSGT (ret), was born in Hartsville, South Carolina, in 1938. A high school dropout, he went on to join the US Marine Corps and served for thirty years before retiring at the highest enlisted rank-master gunnery sergeant. In his two Vietnam tours, he was wounded three times but rejected multiple Purple Heart medals because he considered his nonlife threatening shrapnel injuries unworthy of honor when a fellow Marine lost an arm in the same explosion.

After declining a request to extend his service for another six months because it would have delayed a fellow Marine's