Jared, (none of my buisness, but "unregistered", sounds like an interesting story,
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">My dad said he was reading somewhere that everyone who entered Germany got a bronze star and that the military was willing to upgrade any battlefield bronze stars to silver stars. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">I know for a fact this is not true, Bronze stars were issued more commonally in war, but it is NOT practice to give them away, as this devalues the medal. During the American Civil War, they gave away the Medal of Honor and then right before or just after the 1900's, they was a huge deal of taking away Medals from non-deserving personnel. This was still fresh in the military's mind in 1944/45 and would not have been repeated IMHO.
Go take a weekend, ply your grandfather with some drinks, coke, coke and whiskey, or if from Texas, Dr. Pepper, and talk to him. The day before my Grandfather passed away last year, I happened to ask him about the Arisaka he had given me. I knew it was NOT a battlefield find or anything, he had been stationed in Hawaii, but he told me that a guy at work at mentioned (this was in the early 60's), that he had an old Jap rifle, and he brought it in the next day and gave it to him. So my point is, I filled in a bit of history and learned soemthing else abut that ole rifle. I love to talk to old folks and they might embelish a bit, or remember wrong, but talk a video camera and spend the weekend with him. Its worth it.
Ed