I saw ChuckFinley's thread about finding a new home for a mini-Purple Heart. I was going to put in for it on behalf of my nephew who has been collecting memorabilia about his grandfather, my dad. I thought I remembered as a young boy seeing that same medal in my dad's collection that he kept in a tin can which has been lost. So I started looking through papers that I have of him that I took over when he died back in 2000. I did not see a purple heart listed in any of the documents although I can't imagine how he would not have gotten wounded. He was in the Bataan Death March and was a POW. Then as you can see in the letter below he was in the 744th Ordnance Battalion for over 27 years and was in five Korean campaigns.

He never spoke much about his experiences with me, actually not at all. What I knew I learned elsewhere like how he could never forget seeing someone's head blown off who was running ahead of him as they charged into battle and how they made him undergo a psych evaluation after volunteering again. They thought he was crazy for wanting to be in the war. Reading this letter made me proud of my old man and humbling, indeed, to have come from a prime example as one of the Greatest Generation. I'm sharing as I thought some of you may also enjoy remembering those people of an age slipping by.

P.S. I was born 4 years after this letter. I suppose he was used to carrying a full load out of ammo even at 53 years of age.

Wow, that's a man who laid down his life for his country.