A Different Kind of Feel Good Story
The wallet of a U.S. soldier that was lost in 1953 is returned to the man’s daughter in New Hampshire 65 years later, after being found on a construction site in rural France
Robert McCusker lost his wallet almost 65 years ago in France
His bag was stolen as he made his way back to the U.S. after the Korean War
It was found at a construction site and returned to his family in New Hampshire
McCusker, a war veteran who served in World War II and Korea, died in 1983
According to Mr. McCusker’s daughter, he had reported it stolen. It was found recently in the basement of a building in Chatellerault, France, about 185 miles southwest of Paris. Construction workers tossed it out, leaving it on top of a pile of rubbish, where it was spotted by the building’s owner, Patrick Caubet, who noticed the photographs and military documents such as a ration card. Caubet, whose grandfather was injured by a shell during WWII, and whose father had suffered severe burns during the Algerian War, made an effort to find the owner, to no avail, even approaching the Pentagon about it. He finally resorted to contacting a French military office to get help tracking down any family members of McCusker. After a few stumbles, Sharon McCusker Moore confirmed that one of the photographs was of her mother, and the wallet was on its way to her.
How McCusker lost it is speculation, but his bag/luggage was stolen and his wallet was in the duffel bag, so whoever stole the bag, most likely took whatever cash there was out of the wallet and tossed it aside.
Category: Feel Good Stories
Nice story. Oh…. First!
Kudos. Now buy yourself a tall cold one and enjoy the passing parade.
“First” only counts on Friday’s Weekend Open Thread. Nice try, though.
*grin*
Nice Story, now I wish someone would find my wallet that I lost while rabbit hunting in the praries of eastern Colorado in 1968, and I had just cashed my paycheck! That was a lot of money back then??
WW, you lost your wallet while rabbit hunting so the old saying goes like this- Hare today,and gone tommoro. LOL
Top 10! Good stuff Ex. Curious as to routing via France from Korea to CONUS. Wonder if maybe bags got “switched” on the troop ship from Korea on the way to the west coast and ended up with a trooper going to ETO. We still had troops in France in the 50s. Not hard to understand how the wallet itself ended up in a “social club”. We need to tell IDC-SARC to NOT view the linkie thingie. He may find hisself on the way to New Hampshire
Married a New Hampshire girl…you would think I coulda made parole by now.
I’m a local to Camp Roberts, in California. 2/3 of the WWII barracks were slated to be torn down, due to terrible rot and total lack of maintenance for the last 40 years. Thankfully, the floor tiles contained asbestos, which required the laboriously slow removal and disposal. During the board by board deconstruction, numerous wallets and personal items were found beneath the floors, and tucked into the overhead heating ducts (they also found a number of live grenades, which were photographed, dated, and categorized for the Post museum just before being taken to the impact area and detonated. Reportedly, two functioned perfectly fine with their 70 year old fuses and TNT filler).
Many of the wallets were the subject of an intense search for the owners, or their survivors. Gratefully, a few family members were found, and the wallets returned home.
Hey! We lived in one of those barracks, converted to family living quarters, before my Dad shipped to Korea. It had two sides to it, but we had the entire building. Mom used one side for storage and we lived in the other side. To a little kid, it was huge!