FORT WORTH — Growing up, Mike Shaffer knew little of his great uncle, his grandfather’s brother.
His family rarely spoke of the horrors of war or even of Elbert Knox, who earned the nickname “Toughegg” for his propensity for fighting and his rough-and-tumble reputation.
As a teenager, Shaffer first learned his great uncle had been a prisoner of war during World War II, killed in captivity 11 years before Shaffer was born. His mother did not know much more, but that crumb of information would remain with Shaffer for decades.
On Tuesday, 80 years after his death in a prisoner of war camp, the U.S. Navy posthumously awarded Knox a Purple Heart and a Prisoner of War Medal. Shaffer, now 69, was given the medals at a ceremony at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth.
“Everything. This means everything,” Shaffer, who lives in Tyler, said after the ceremony. “This is proof of what he went through.”
Shaffer began researching his great uncle four years ago, when he learned about the Prisoner of War Medal. Five generations of his family have served in the military, including Shaffer, who served in the U.S. Army from 1973 to 1976, and Shaffer wondered why his great uncle had never received the medal. He began making phone calls and digging online.
Slowly, Shaffer unraveled his great uncle’s story.
Knox enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 19 and served as a cook at an Army hospital in Illinois after World War I. A…
