Description:

IDENTIFIED PURPLE HEART ISSUED TO VIETNAM WAR SOLDIER BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN IMMORTALIZED IN SONG ‘THE WALL'
A superb item: the original cased Purple Heart awarded to Walter Cichon, a legendary New Jersey front man for the 1960s band The Motifs, who was drafted in 1967 and killed in Vietnam on Mar. 30, 1968. The Motifs formed a good chunk of the soundtrack in Bruce Springsteen's early life as a musician, from their friendship, to musical influence and throughout his entire career. He specifically named the band's importance in the development of his own music. Springsteen's lifelong influence by Walter Cichon would culminate in his writing and performing an elegy in the form of his hit ‘The Wall' which was formally released on his 2014 album ‘High Hopes'.

Walter Cichon was the lead singer The Motifs, a New Jersey Shore band in the mid-1960s which played popular British-Invasion in local bars. While the band never received national recognition or produced any major albums, The Motifs recorded the semi-famous hit ‘Molly' in December 1965 ,and many kids forming their own bands in the area drew great inspiration from them. These kids included the young Bruce Springsteen, then a member of a lesser-known group, the Steel Mill Band who revered the band's on-stage dynamism and musical blend of The Kinks and Stones.

Springsteen recalled his reaction to The Motifs in the liner notes to his 2014 album ‘High Hopes': ‘…Raw, sexy and rebellious, they were the heroes you aspired to be. But these who were heroes you could touch, speak to, and go to with your musical inquiries…an inspiration to me…'. In a 2018 interview with The Washington Post, Springsteen again celebrates the Cichon brothers: ‘…They were gods…[Walter] on stage, he was deadly, he was aloof and raw and sexual and dangerous…', further naming Ray Cichon as ‘my guitar hero'. He adds: ‘Walter Cichon was the greatest rock-and-roll front man on the Jersey Shore in the bar-band 1960s…He was the first rock star I ever laid eyes on…In our little area, he showed us by the way that he lived. That you could live your life the way you choose. You could look the way you wanted…You could tell anybody you didn't like to go [expletive] themselves. The band itself he dubbed ‘essential to my development as a young musician'.

The Vietnam War would change everything, however, with Springsteen's rising career in music in stark contrast to that of Walter Cichon. Springsteen flatly states that when he and two bandmates rode to the Selective Service office in 1967, we ‘…did everything we could not to go'. He also confided that he was a ‘stone-cold draft dodger'. Walter Cichon, however, was drafted in 1967 and joined the 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry. He was declared MIA in the Kontum province of South Vietnam on March 30, 1968. The details about his death are apocryphal: The Asbury Park Press reported that Walter was shot in the head while emerging from a trench with a grenade and died immediately. Another source claims that Cichon was operated on in the field, then died and was buried nearby. No other details of his death have been discovered.

In July 1975, the family held a memorial service and was presented with his posthumously-awarded medals, including the Purple Heart we offer here.

Springsteen visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial while on a trip to Washington in 1997, and found Walter Cichon's name immortalized in stone there. This visit brought Springsteen's personal relationship to Cichon into the spotlight. In 2003, Springsteen debuted ‘The Wall' during a solo acoustic concert in Somerville, Massachusetts, and dedicated it to Walter. He performed it twice more during his 2005 ‘Devil's & Dust' tour. ‘The Wall' was released in 2014 in album form on ‘High Hopes', where Springsteen added in the liner notes: ‘Though my character in ‘The Wall' is a Marine, Walter was actually in the Army, A Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry…He still performs somewhat regularly in my mind…'.

Four years later, Walter Cichon was still performing in Springsteen's mind: during several performances of his show ‘Springsteen on Broadway', Springsteen devotes nearly 10 minutes to the Cichon brothers, sharing memories and stories about the almost-unknown brothers and their musical influence on him, one of the biggest rock stars of all time. His recollections also include a hefty dose of sadness for Walter Cichon's lost potential: ‘…All those lost years. Somebody's life…To this day I do sometimes wonder who went in my place because somebody did…'.

Cichon's Purple Heart is engraved with his name on verso, and accompanied with bars in the original clamshell case. Also included is a bronze star, presumably Cichon's but not identified. Very good to fine condition.

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March 27, 2026 10:00 AM EDT
Elkton, MD, US

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC

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