14th Purple Heart Dinner will be held Saturday, August 5
The 14th annual Wake Forest Purple Heart Dinner will be held Saturday evening, August 5, 2023 at Richland Creek Community Church, 3229 Burlington Mills Road, beginning at 5:30 p.m. This year’s guest speaker will be Jessica Dawn Lynch, a teacher and a private in the United States Army who was seriously injured and later captured by Iraqi soldiers during the battle for Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003. She was rescued by United States special operations forces on April 1, the first successful rescue of an American prisoner of war since World War II and the first of a woman soldier. Since the banquet was first held in 2009 in the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary gymnasium, formerly Gore Gym, the Purple Heart Foundation has honored all the area Purple Heart recipients it can find. Tickets for the banquet are $30 and are available from the Purple Heart board members or at