Mon Valley WWII vet honored for service in Pacific Theater
BELLE VERNON – Felix J. Lisovich heard a thud while serving as a U.S. Army combat medic in World War II in the Pacific Theater.
The sound was an enemy hand grenade that exploded, sending shrapnel into his left arm and killing the soldier he was treating, Felix said Tuesday after he was honored by the military for his bravery seven decades ago.
“You are the picture of the soldier we want our Army to be,” said Sgt. Major Michael Gragg, who traveled to North Belle Vernon to give special awards to the 96-year-old veteran.
“He showed himself to be a true hero,” said Gragg, of the Army’s medical command.
Lisovich was greeted with a standing-room-only crowd at American Legion Post 659 in North Belle Vernon.
“I’m surprised. I didn’t know it was going to be this big,” Lisovich said after the program.
His honors Tuesday focused on an amphibious operation to liberate the Philippines when his unit encountered kamikaze attacks from Japanese Zero fighter planes. He helped to evacuate casualties while under enemy fire.
The then-Staff Sgt. Lisovich would stop the bleeding of a wounded infantryman and perform surgery on the soldier while his team was under enemy fire in a jungle.
The team members eventually moved the wounded soldier to safety while taking turns carrying him three miles up a steep trail.
Gragg said Lisovich’s 32-page story was brought to his attention by a colleague, Brian Bender of Belle Vernon, who was driven to and from school as a child by Lisovich.
“I couldn’t put it down,” Gragg said before presenting Lisovich with a regimental honor certificate, the Order of Military Medical Merit medallion and a letter of recognition signed by the Army’s surgeon general.
After the war, Lisovich used his medical training to serve as an emergency medical technician with a local ambulance service.
He went to work in the wire mill at U.S. Steel’s operations in Donora, and later at Corning Glass in Charleroi.
He fathered three children, Suzanne Zdilla, Lynette Carpenter and Dan Lisovich, with his wife Juanita, who died in 2014 at age 85.