Posthumous honor for Falls hero

   GREAT FALLS (AP) - Nearly a year after he died in the invasion of Panama, Vance Troy Coats of Great Falls was honored for heroism in the service to his country.
   The 18-year-old private first class was awarded the Bronze Star medal for valor and the Purple Heart. His mother, Darla Stone, received the honors in her home on Dec. 2.
   The Bronze Star is a decoration for heroic or meritorious service not involving aerial flights. Stone said the medals "were long overdue." In February, she received the box and citation for the Purple Heart, an honor given to soldiers who are wounded or killed in action.
   But the medal had somehow been left out or taken out, she said.
   A letter from her husband to President Bush got matters straightened out, she said.
   Coats, a former Great Falls high student, joined the Army in his junior year. He was a telephone operator for the 508th Infantry stationed at Fort Cobbe, [sic] Panama, when he was killed by a grenade last Dec. 20 during the invasion, which was intended to oust Gen. Manuel Noriega.
   In a letter to a Great Falls newspaper, Stone wrote : "I am not bitter toward our Army, our country or even the criminal Noriega. I only hope someday the world can learn to settle their differences without war and aggression."

[The Billings Gazette, Billings, MT, 13 Dec 1990, Thu, Page 40]