NAPLES, Fla. — Keith Dalen has only a few remaining items from the grandfather who raised him.
There are the old photographs. There is the flag that covered his grandfather's casket after his death in 1992. And there is the Purple Heart medal that his grandfather, Army Staff Sgt. Raymond "Ramon" Ferrer, earned for his service in World War II.
Dalen isn't sure when the medal first went missing — he suspects it happened when he or his son moved a few years back. But earlier this year, the Purple Heart turned up at a pawnshop in Connecticut, where he is from.
A group that reunites Purple Hearts with veterans' families contacted Dalen's daughter and promised to send the medal down to Dalen's home in Estero. He expects to receive the medal any day now.
"It's just a great organization," Dalen said Tuesday.
From what Dalen can remember, his grandfather was shot in December of 1944 and taken to a POW camp, where he was held for about five months until Germany surrendered. Ferrer wasn't one to volunteer a lot of information about his time in the Army, but he would answer questions if his grandson asked. To Dalen, the medal was a tangible reminder of his service, a family heirloom that can't be replaced.
"Even though he didn't make much of it, to me, it showed me the kind of person he was," Dalen said. "He went to war and prepared to risk his life because he felt it was his responsibility."
Army Capt. Zachariah Fike started the organization that became Purple Hearts Reunited in 2009. Upon his return from a deployment, Fike began collecting antiques as a way to keep himself occupied. He started stumbling across military items and rescuing them, feeling sorry that they had been sold and discarded.
As a Christmas present that year, Fike's mother gave him a Purple Heart she'd purchased at a pawnshop for $100. He became interested in tracking down the medal's recipient, and the search eventually led him to the man's family. Fike returned the medal to them and said for the first time in years, the recipient's siblings reunited to claim it.
"It became something more than just returning the medal — it became reuniting the family," Fike said.
Since then, the group has returned more than 100 medals. Fike has made it somewhat of a mission to purchase Purple Hearts — which he said can go for up to $300 — when he comes across them in shops or on eBay.
"Believe it or not, these medals, especially Purple Hearts, are collected like baseball cards," he said.
Fike believes the medals should be placed with the veteran's family or, if that's not an option, a military museum or city hall in the place where the veteran was from. He doesn't believe most of the medals are sold with the permission of the recipient's family.
"There are some instances where the families just don't care, but we have over 100 examples of that not being the case," he said.
In Dalen's case, his grandfather's medal somehow ended up at a pawnshop in Connecticut that was going out of business. The property owner came across the medal and contacted Fike's group for help. Fike was able to find Dalen's daughter, who lives in Naples, through ancestry.com.
Dalen said he assumed his son had possession of the medal, and his son assumed that he did. They didn't even know it was missing.
Dalen now plans to pass the medal along to his son, so it can be enjoyed by the next generation. He is thrilled to have the Purple Heart back in the family.
"We have to thank them very much," Dalen said. "They do this on a regular basis, but I gotta stress: these people are wonderful."
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