Stolen Purple Heart Returned
Nearly 40 years missing from a burglary, Viet Nam Vet Gus Allbritton has been reunited with his award.
Purple Heart stolen from Vietnam vet returned nearly 40 years later: ‘I couldn’t believe it’
Veteran Gus Allbritton was wounded three times during the Vietnam War
By Emma Colton
A Vietnam veteran is back in possession of his Purple Heart after it was stolen from him nearly 40 years ago during a burglary.
“It said that somebody had found my Purple Heart,” Gus Allbritton, 71, recounted about a message that was left for him at the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center in Georgia. “And there was a phone number in Florida for a man named Jamie Bath.”
Allbritton is a Vietnam veteran who was deployed with the 173rd Infantry Regiment from 1969-1970. He was wounded three times during the war: when he was shot in the shoulder by an AK-47, when he was shot in the groin, legs and feet, and also when a rocket-propelled grenade was launched into his bunker, Stars and Stripes reported. He was subsequently awarded three Purple Hearts, two of which he gave to his children, and another he held onto.
In 1983, while he was working as a sheriff’s deputy in Florida, he was the victim of a burglary. He had stored the Purple Heart for safekeeping in a heavy bottle that also contained coins, pocket knives and other valuables.
Some good news for a change.
Category: Combat Wounded, Crime, Purple Heart
Good news indeed.
I’d like to think it’s karma working it’s magic.
A BZ and Thank you to Mr. Jaime Bath for tracking down the owner and returning the Metal.