Our Precious Gift

A grandson has begun to post the letters he found at his parents while cleaning out their home.  They range from the every day life of cramped quarters, no hot water, to the daily grind of war.  Letters from 90 years ago are now making people feel like they are there hoping Harry will survive.  The special thing about this site is that he started posting the letters 90 years to the day they were written and he posts the letters on the day they were written so sometimes you get a letter two days in a row and sometimes, like now, you do not hear from him for a while.  The last letter was dated December 30, 1917 and every one is waiting to see if another letter is posted……is Harry alright?

I don’t know if you have noticed or not but when I add a soldiers name to site I am linking it to a news story or personal website so you can read their account of their story.  This serves two purposes.  The first is to share with everyone their story of battle and the second is to show verification that they are indeed a Purple Heart recipient.  I have been reading stories on line about people who “pretend” to be recipients of this medal and it just pisses me off.  Bad people never cease to amaze me.   

I hope you find the information contained on this site informative and reliable.  If you see something that is not right please let me know and I will do my best to verify it or take it off.  Please continue to send me your information, for it is because of you that this site exists.

Unfortunately the list are continuing to grow.  I know with every name I put on this site that is another family that has been forever changed.  Thank you our men and women in the United States Military.

As you can see I have added a few more names to the site.  Mr. Johnson emailed me to say that he passed on the site to about 100 Blackhorse soldiers, I am very excited about that.  I hope you notice I have updated the charts and hopefully they are a little easier to read.  Let me know what you think about the new charts, and if there is anything you want me to change just make a suggestion.

Today is a great day; I have received my first email response from a brave man who served in Vietnam with the Blackhorse, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, C Troop, 1st Sqdn, 2nd Platoon during 1969-1970.  I have added his information and attached a link to his story under the Vietnam tab in the sidebar.  Mr. Johnson said he would be honored to be on the website but we are the ones that are honored to have him.  Thank your Mr. Chris Johnson, it certainly is our pleasure.

Tampa Bay News 10, my local news station, has picked up the story about the site and they have decided to do a story about it.  I am so excited about this.  We will go so much exposure about the site and hopefully we will get more people to share some stories with us.  I would love to see this site have 50,000 names by the end of 2008.  I know that is only a drop in the bucket but at least it is a start.  Please continue to pass the site on to everyone you know, the more we pass it around the better chance we have of it landing in someone’s email box that needs to sign up on it.

I want to thank everyone for all of the positive feedback I have received and the site is just a couple of days old.  It is being picked up by several blogs and the response is overwhelming.  I have been asked, “what if I do not have all of the information?”  We will be happy to take any information you have.  Just keep in mind this is a site based on the same honor our soldiers show so please keep everything honest.  If you have minimal information or the entire story it does not matter as long as the details you have are facts.I look forward to reading the stories and seeing how big this site gets.  Looking into the future if we have enough people interested we are thinking about putting together a forum so everyone can communicate with each other and hopefully we will reunite a few people.  Please continue to pass the site around and send as much information as you can.God bless

If you or someone you know has received any medals of distinction through the military please leave a comment with their name, rank, branch of service, year received, and medal awarded.  If you would like to tell your story of how you came to receive the medal we would love to hear about it.

My goal is to have the largest list of soldiers with medals awarded on the Internet.  Please pass this site to family and friends.  If the war they fought in is not listed please do not let that discourage you, it would be my honor to add it.  If you have any questions or concerns please let me know, I am here to help and try to preserve part of our history.