Don Ballard, Medal of Honor recipient, burglarized

| March 30, 2017

Donald Everett Ballard was a corpsman assigned to a Marine company on May 16, 1968 when he selflessly shielded his Marines from a grenade blast with his own body. Luckily, the grenade failed to detonate, but his actions that day earned him the Medal of Honor. He has since that moment spent his life in service to veterans and Boy Scouts, and that is what he was doing in Washington, DC when thieves broke into his business and took more than $100,000 in property and cash, according to the Kansas City Star;

“I’m sick, lost for words,” Ballard said Tuesday by phone.

Ballard has long been affiliated with Forgotten Veterans and its parent group, National Combat Medical Memorial & Youth Education Center. Aside from helping with burials, the group also funds outdoor learning facilities and camping trips for Boy Scout groups. Weapons stolen from Ballard were used for educational purposes with the scouts.

The stolen cash, which Ballard estimated at $25,000, was to be used for caskets and burial markers for vets. “They’re essentially stealing from dead veterans,” he said.

His Medal of Honor ring was also taken. Coins and various honors awarded to him during past Medal of Honor events are gone. A coin enthusiast, his many gold coins collected over a lifetime were stolen.

“It’s a lot of stuff I’ll never be able to recover,” Ballard said. “The person who stole this will probably melt it down. They won’t see the core value of it.”

Category: Veterans in the news

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Graybeard

This makes me sick with grief and anger.

FuzeVT

Me too. This kind of shit pisses me off to the core.

sgt. vaarkman 27-48th TFW

ditto for me

2/17 Air Cav

“Ballard added that he has his suspicions that the culprit or culprits knew him, knew that he was out of town and knew where he stored the cash and memorabilia.” First thing I thought was, “Inside job of some sort. The thief knew he’d be away. The cash was probably hidden fairly well.” I just hope there is an arrest and a recovery quickly.

The Stranger

Yep, and a long spell in the “loving” arms of Bubba, Thor, Julio, and Tiny.

Shitbags like the thief WILL get theirs in the end.

Thunderstixx

Hopefully they get it over and over and over ad infinitum…

IDC SARC

FFS

Wilted Willy

This really pisses me off! I hope the scumbags that did this are ass raped by the barbed cock of Satan for the rest of their miserable lives! Fuck these cocksucking ass hamsters!

Ex-PH2

Slimy scum.

Silentium Est Aureum

Pineapple. Fronds first.

Or they do a little “sea justice” and the scumbag thief falls up a few flights of stairs on the way to jail.

Eden

This is beyond despicable. No words to do this justice.

11B-mailclerk

Sadly, we leave too many barbarians running loose.

Any display of valuables is likely to draw the unwanted attention of some freelance socialist, who will loot at the available opportunity.

Yef

Humm. Good idea for an L-shaped ambush.

HMC Ret

Shit

Ncat

Three is a special place in hell…

HMC Ret

If the crooks melt down his gold coins into bullion so as to not leave a trail, I hope they are overcome by the fumes of the process.

The Old Maj

It’s going to be an inside job. They will likely get caught. Never see his medal again likely.