CBS 13 (Sacramento): Call Kurtis Investigates - A Missing Purple Heart
"That's a real tragedy," said Colonel Russ Vernon, the executive director of the National Purple Heart Honor Mission, who things that the medal should stay with the family and not in personal collections.
"Medals are earned by recipients," he said. "They are not to be bought and sold."
If no family can be found, he things the medal should end up with a military organization like his, a nonprofit that displays orphaned medals at the Purple Heart Hall of Honor in New York.