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[h=4]Dog digs up Purple Heart; search on for veteran's family[/h]DENVER — At her home in Stapleton, a golden lab mix named Smuckers is about to get an unusual visitor — the kind usually reserved for military veterans and their families. It's all because of her tendency to
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At her home in Stapleton, a golden lab mix named Smuckers is about to get an unusual visitor - the kind usually reserved for military veterans and their families. 9NEWS at 5 p.m. 03/22/15.
A dog digging in a yard finds Purple Heart(Photo: KUSA)
DENVER — At her home in Stapleton, a golden lab mix named Smuckers is about to get an unusual visitor — the kind usually reserved for military veterans and their families.
It's all because of her tendency to dig holes in the yard, much to the chagrin of her owners, Tom Unterwagner and Steve Jankousky.
"I was just trying to put the dirt back in the hole, when I saw something shiny and that was it," Jankousky said. "And I went back inside and told [Tom], 'You're not going to believe what she dug up.'"
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Turned out, it was a Purple Heart. The military medal given to those wounded or killed in service of their country was at the bottom of a 10-inch hole Smuckers dug in her old backyard. It appeared to be in good condition and was engraved on the back: Cpl. Richmond Litman.
"We had this Purple Heart for a decade and just had no way to get it back to where it belonged," Jankousky said.
Years later, they heard about the Vermont-based, non-profit "Purple Hearts Reunited." The organization was founded by Army captain and Afghanistan veteran Zachariah Fike.
"We see this all the time. I's a mystery," Fike said. "Every medal has its own journey, and who knows how that medal got into the ground."
The backyard where Smuckers found the medal is just blocks away from where Litman used to live in Denver.
Purple Hearts Reunited receives between three to five military medals in the mail every week. The group tries to reunite the medals with the veterans they belong to or their families.
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Fike began looking into Litman's past and discovered he was an African-American army soldier who served in the Korean War. He earned his Purple Heart there in 1950. Litman is buried at Fort Logan National Cemetery, along with his wife, Ida.
Fike and other recipients of the Purple Heart came to honor him, and symbolically reunite Litman with his medal.
"It is very important to remember the veteran that either gave his life, or shed his blood for his country, and that it remain with the family," said Ret. Col. Jeff Roy, who is with the group "Military Order of the Purple Heart."
The next step is to find any of Litman's surviving family members. He had two brothers: one who served in World War II and the Korean War; the other serving in both those wars and in Vietnam. His brothers are deceased, with one buried outside Philadelphia and the other not far from the family's hometown of San Angelo, Texas.
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Fike says if they're unable to find his family, the heritage museum in San Angelo has agreed to display the medal to honor Cpl. Litman's service.
"For them, there's no backstory, there's no picture," Fike said. "They're essentially forgotten — and through telling their stories and doing this foundation, in our own way, we're bringing them back to life again."
Purple Hearts Reunited has 300 military medals — of all types — which the group is trying to reunite with veterans or their families. For more information on their work, or if you have military medal you would like to reunite with a veteran or their family, go to purpleheartsreunited.org.
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