(UPDATED)Help Us Make a Holiday Miracle Come True: we did it!

Update: After only one day I am happy to report that the funds have been raised and this part of the project is complete! 

Thank you everyone!

Many of  the long time readers of this blog will remember our past fund raising projects. We took on some huge projects, with great teams and brought a bunch of great people together from our hobby world to work together and give back as a group. This year I have decided to kick it down a notch. No raffles, no weekly updates from teams of blog hobby superstars. This time I am simply going to ask our readers and friends to help us do something that we feel needs to be done.

This year I am asking for your help to make a holiday miracle happen.

This is Jackie Nesbit, he was a member of the 17th Airborne 466th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, he was killed in combat during Operation Varsity on March 24 1945.

This is a photo of Jackie and his wife Elizabeth Nesbit just before he was deployed to Europe. Jackie and Elizabeth had a daughter Patricia, she was born after Jackie left for the war, they never got to meet each other, she was one month old when he was killed in combat 

 Patricia as a young girl 

 This is Patricia now.

After the war Elizabeth remarried, and the family moved around a bit. Sometime during that period, the Purple Heart Medal that was sent home after Jackie's death was lost.

I came across some messages online in a militairy forum from Patricia's son in law, in which he was searching for the Purple Heart to return to Jackie Nesbit's daughter Patricia. He is ex Army, and so am I, we both understood the importance of returning this medal to his child, so I offered to help him.

The original named medal has been found in a private collection, and the owner has agreed to sell it for the amount he has invested in it.

Unfortunately these things are very collectible and command a high price. If it was 20 bucks I would just buy it and send it off to the family, who wouldn't? That's when I got to thinking, what's a few bucks to do the right thing? I know a bunch of people that would help pitch in a few bucks to make this right. I bet they all know a few friends too. 

This year I am asking all of you to pitch in and help return Jackie Nesbit's Purple Heart to his daughter and her family. 

You aren't going to win anything, I'm not going to grow a mustache, but maybe we can get together and make a holiday miracle happen for a little girl that never met her father and see to it that her family has something to remember him with.  

 Jackie Nesbit's remains were recovered from Holland and buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery. 

If you would like to help us with this project, please use the button on the top right of this page and hit the drop down menu to select an amount to pitch in. If you want to help spread the word , please link to and share this page.

Thanks, and happy holidays.