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A lot more than 1,500,000 Purple Hearts have now been awarded to American servicemen and -women since World War Two. The medals are one of the military's top honors and are generally found proudly displayed on outfits, sleeping places or in family domiciles. They're not the type of items you had be prepared to find in a music shop-and when one lately was, it sparked a cross-country effort.

Gene Dobos was browsing through a secondhand shop in California when he came across a worn, heart-shaped honor blended in with the knickknacks. It absolutely was a Heart bearing the name "Frank N. Smith." Purple Hearts are awarded to American soldiers who are hurt by the enemy and to another location of kin of soldiers killed in action or who die from injuries received in battle. Dobos, who understood the significance of the medal, purchased it from the store and helped set off a national search for its owner.

Dobos contacted the Military Order of the Purple Heart-an company of combat veterans who work to honor the medal and its readers. They call themselves the "Keepers of the Medal." Jimmy Funderburk, the group's public relations chief-who is just a Vietnam veteran with two Purple Hearts himself-researched the medal and ultimately unearthed that Frank N. Johnson was an exclusive in the U.S. Army who died in Vietnam not exactly 40 years back.

Jones, who was 20 during the time, was in a that was ambushed on December 17, 1968-just two weeks before he was scheduled to come back to his home state of Ohio permanently.

After learning Smith's history, Funderburk looked to an Ohio genealogist for aid in investigating Smith's resting place and remaining family.

"It seems as if the honor has been handled several times," said Funderburk. "I imagined his dad and mom getting the honor out and holding it in their hands, thinking about their son."

Eventually, Smith's grave was found in a cemetery maybe not far from his childhood home in Ohio. His parents had died, but his siblings were found using e-mails they had sent memorializing their brother at an on the web registry for fallen Vietnam War troops. They didn't know the medal had gone missing and were "overwhelmed" that the group of strangers had worked so difficult to return it for them.

Frank N. Smith was married and had a kid briefly before shipping off to Vietnam (he enlisted voluntarily). After his demise, his widow and daughter moved west, presumably getting the Purple Heart together. It is unknown how a honor arrived in a thrift shop.

For Smith's brother Jonna, the return of the medal brought with it a of emotions-and she wasn't alone in her response. Funderburk, of the Purple Heart Order, was so impressed by the amount of those who came together to come back the medal to Smith's family that he composed a poem. His son-in-law helped him set the words to music and a CD was made that's being sold. Earnings help buy young people that are joined by a scholarship program with experts who're bedridden and residing in Veteran Affairs facilities.

The song's chorus reads:

Purple Hearts are won in battle; grenades increase, machine guns rattle; a dies, a mother cries; that's how Purple Hearts are won.

The Order and Smith's family prepared a little service to be placed in the cemetery. The Purple Heart will be encased in glass and attached with Smith's headstone.

Private High Grade Frank N. Smith's history is going to be observed in every VA hospital in The Usa as young people move among the veterans and tell the tale of a man who left Seneca County, Ohio to defend freedom-and who eventually got his medal. the warz no clip