After nearly a century on this earth, the old soldier’s memory has become fickle. He dwells in the immediate present and distant past, and what lies between flickers, here, then gone.

Dad, his children tell him, you’re finally getting your service medals on Sunday. Sixty-six years since he was discharged and he never received all his decorations. There’s going to be a pinning ceremony for you, his children say.

Just for me, he exclaims, excited. And then forgets all about it.

World War II falls into that gap in Charlie Chavez’s memory. When he came home, he weighed 90 pounds. He couldn’t sleep, and he walked up and down the block, disoriented. He lived decades with memories he rarely shared. Perhaps it’s a blessing he can’t remember, says his oldest daughter, Phyllis. At any rate, his mind was strong when he needed it to be.

Chavez was 33, married and a father of two when he enlisted in 1944. He had been making bullets in the Remington Arms plant. By August, he was on his way to France as a rifleman in Gen. Patton’s Third Army. He was assigned to a scout unit. A few months in, he was shot in the hip, captured four days later and sent to Stalag IV-B, one of the largest German prisoner-of-war camps. It was overflowing with sick, starving men.

Had you known then what you know now, would you still have enlisted, his granddaughter Lynette once asked him. Of course, he said. “It’s everyone’s responsibility to not let what happened with Hitler happen ever again.”

In a moment of recall, he told his children he thought he had some medals coming to him. Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Sal Villano took it from there. Villano heads the Forgotten Heroes campaign, which honors in a public ceremony veterans who never received their medals. Villano pulled the records and arranged for the medals and the ceremony. He has done hundreds of pinnings, but never on a veteran closing in on 100.

The ceremony was held Sunday at Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish hall. Chavez was dressed in a short-sleeve shirt and blue jeans. He tucked his black, plastic comb in his shirt pocket. Time might have taken his memory, but it hasn’t touched his hair.

“I thought we were going to church,” Chavez said to his son, Bob, outside the parish hall.

Close to 100 people waited in the hall. They sat at tables with red and blue tablecloths. Villano, in uniform, was accompanied by Glen Stenson, commander of American Legion Post 1.

When Chavez entered, leaning on his walker, oxygen tube trailing, the whole room stood, applauding as he walked by. It might have been 50 feet from the back of the room to the table in front, but in that space, Chavez was transformed. He could not straighten his back, but he lifted his chin and reached out to greet the well-wishers and placed his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Lynette told the audience about her grandfather, the son of a railroader, a laborer, a father of four, a man who counted among his riches his faith and his family and his country.

“He is my hero,” she said.

Villano handed Chavez a European campaign medal with three bronze stars. He pinned upon his shirt a Purple Heart, a POW medallion and, finally, assisted by Chavez’s youngest great-grandchild — a boy born nearly a century after his grandpa — the World War II victory medal.

Chavez said only a few words: “I want to thank everybody. I’m very happy you’re here. We’re all here because a lot of people like me did the same thing.”

The next day, he would marvel: “Was all that for me?”

But on Sunday night, the medals, shiny and heavy, hang upon his cotton shirt, dragging the pocket downward. Music plays. Men shake his hand. Women hug him. A man in a POW cap gives him a sharp salute. The old soldier, looking him in the eye, offers his own in return.

Tina Griego writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.