First I would like to say thank you everyone who is visiting the site.  I could not imagine this would take off like this when I started it a couple years ago.  We now have people registering as users on a daily bases and I want all of you to be able to talk to each other and hopefully we can put some people in touch with each other.

Over the weekend my husband and I are going to be working on the site so we might have some downtime.  We are attempting to have the site be more interactive for our visitors and to do that we need to change out the format.  We are going to put the site into more of a forum so you can leave comments for each other and talk amongst yourselves.

Please be patient with us while we make this change to better serve the needs of our visitors.  Of course we will still have the list.  We are not taking anything away but only adding to our site.  Once the new forum is up, unfortunately you will need to register.  I tried to get around this but it could not be done.

I will keep you posted on the progress.

Thanks, Melissa

Father Serves Tour Of Duty In Iraq

Clinton and Bradford Baldwin

PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. — A South Florida first-grader got a nice surprise at school on Thursday when his father returned from serving in the military overseas.Every day, 6-year-old Clinton Baldwin wears a yellow pin to Mrs. Rodriguez’s class at Lake Forest Elementary School in Pembroke Park.

“It’s for my dad to come home safe from Iraq,” he said.Clinton said he has thought about his father every day since he first left four months ago to serve in Iraq. While he and his first-grade classmates thought Local 10’s cameras were in their classroom to profile their teacher, Thursday was really about Clinton.Just down the hall waited a big surprise. Clinton’s father, Bradford Baldwin, came to school to tell his son he’s home.”Daddy, I’ve missed you,” Clinton shouted as his father opened the classroom door. “I wore this pin to bring you back.”Their reunion marked the end of Baldwin’s first tour of duty in the front lines.”I’ve missed him for four months and now I’m finally home,” Baldwin said.War wounds run deep for children of soldiers overseas. It appeared that father and son both understood that in battle, returning home is never guaranteed.”It’s scary and it does get lonely, but when you have family behind that you know miss you, that you know care about you and are thinking about you, it makes it a lot easier,” he said.Clinton and his father have a lot of catching up to do. In two weeks, Baldwin will head back to Iraq for his second tour.”Now that I’m going back, I already know what to expect, and I’ve got my family behind me, so I’ll be all right,” Baldwin said.Clinton will hold onto his yellow pin, but for now, he is holding on tighter to his dad.

A job and resource fair for Veterans, National Guard, and Reservists returning from active duty.

Dress for success and bring your resume. Meet and interview with employers. Find out about job opportunities. Obtain benefits, training and career information. Parking at the hotel will be validated. Bring copies of your resume.

Open to all job seekers.

For additional information, please call Job Seeker Hotline (818) 899- 9541 Robert Shiverdecker (805) 382-8610

Our Precious Gift Forum

I have a couple things I would like to share.  First, I have added a few more names on the list.  Most of the names have been added to the WWII list and a couple to Iraq so browse through them.

Second, I am in the middle of getting a forum started for the site.  I am very excited about this because you, the visitors, will be able to leave post hopefully helping you find people you have been looking for.  I am very very excited about this.  Once the forum is up and running I will send an email out to all of the registered users I have so if you want to be notified please register so I will have your email address.

Hopefully, this will take place in the next week or two.

Please include: name, rank, branch of service, medal, date received

Also I will be happy to post any stories you would like to share with our readers.  I am very happy with that amount of visitors we are receiving to the site and I would like to continue to give them information they are searching for.  I hope to hear from you soon.

If you have emailed me in the last couple weeks, please resend.  We moved and I forgot to update the email address on the site.  I have now updated that information and look forward to getting your emails again.

To Whom It May Concern:

My father is a decorated veteran of the Korean War. I am currently faced with a challenge…  On April 21,1967 we lost everything that we owned in a tornado in Oak Lawn, IL. We were buried alive in the basement until we could be dug out. We had the cloths on our back and our lives to be grateful for.  After months of going thru debris to salvage what little of our family past could be found, my dad was able to recover his Army Uniform and his box of service awards.  We didn’t know this until we were adults and my step-mom had the medals framed and displayed in our home.

 My Dad never really spoke of the war, but often described how beautiful the “presentation award” that accompanied the medal that he was awarded in the hospital. He has always wished that the award could be replaced because it was one of the many items of personal significance that was destroyed by Mother Nature.  My initial inquiry to the Pentagon revealed that the records were lost in a fire in the 70’s….  I do not know where to go next to try and obtain a replacement of the Purple Heart presentation document.

 My Dad will be 80 in June of this year and I would love to be able to give him this document that was lost long ago.

I do have partial discharge papers from the Army Core of engineers, tattered maps of assignment locations, probably 50 black and white photos from the war, originally they were slides (these were recovered from the debris and restored by an unknown photographer). My Dads uniform is in a box, but was mostly destroyed by fiberglass.