Lost Purple Hearts returned to families

NEW YORK — The families of seven dead U.S. servicemen gathered on Monday to receive lost Purple Heart medals their loved ones had earned in four wars.

An eighth veteran was present for the ceremony at the historic Federal Hall on Wall Street on Monday, which was National Purple Heart Day.

The group Purple Hearts Reunited, based in Georgia, Vt., has made it its mission to track down misplaced medals. Founder Zachariah Fike said as many as five are found weekly across the country.

Seven of those medals returned Monday went to men who served in World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. The eighth was presented to Army Specialist Daniel Swift, a firefighter injured by a roadside bomb in 2004 in Iraq as a member of the National Guard. In his honor, the ceremony opened with the Fire Department of New York’s bagpipe band.

Rebecca Crofts, 72, was 10 when her dad, WWII Staff Sgt. Bernard Eldon Snow, of Santa Barbara, Calif., misplaced his medal.

Snow’s medal was eventually recovered in a California jewelry shop and returned to the Purple Heart Foundation.

A tearful Crofts was handed a folded American flag honoring her father.

The Purple Hearts were presented framed, next to each recipient’s military rank.

Besides Snow and Swift, the Purple Hearts went to: Army Pvt. Frank Lyman Dunnell Jr. of Buffalo; Staff Sgt. George Wesley Roles of Edna, Kan.; 1st Lt. Brian Woolley Flavelle of North Caldwell, N.J.; Pvt. Dan Lawrence Feragen of Carlyle, Mont.; Pvt. 1st Class Jack Carl Kightlinger of Franklin, Pa.; and Pvt. 1st Class Andrew Thomas Calhoun of Great Bridge, Va.