Purple Heart Recipient To Lead Elmhurst Parade

ELMHURST, IL – A Bensenville man who suffered severe injuries in 2007 in Iraq is the grand marshal for Elmhurst's Memorial Day Parade this year, the city announced Monday.

Richard Duzinskas, a two-time Purple Heart recipient, was raised on Chicago's South Side and graduated in 2003 from Walther Lutheran High School in Melrose Park.

Shortly after, he joined the U.S. Army and served in South Korea before being deployed to Iraq in mid-2004. He returned to Fort Carson in Colorado after a year.

He was deployed again in early 2006. In January 2007, while on patrol, Duzinskas' Humvee was hit by seven Iranian-made, large explosives, according to an Elmhurst news release. The driver and another person were killed instantly.

Duzinskas' left arm was severed, and he suffered shrapnel wounds to his entire left side. His left lung was cut in half and collapsed, while much tissue and skin were damaged.

Duzinskas has had many surgeries to reconstruct his arm, among other procedures; he lost track of his surgeries after 50 of them, the news release said.

While at a German hospital, Duzinskas was visited by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He received a Purple Heart after the explosion and an earlier one for a December 2006 incident in which he took a ricocheted bullet to the face but continued fighting, the news release said.

Duzinskas moved to Bensenville in 2011. Four years later, he joined an ice hockey team of veterans now known as the Chicago Warriors.

Duzinskas, the father of 13-year-old Dominick, belongs to the Elmhurst American Legion.

The parade is at 9:30 a.m. Memorial Day.