canteen returned 63 years later

[MrBern]

http://wjz.com/local/canteen.braddock.art.2.885274.html

Vet loses kit as he docks stateside.
Canteen returned 63 years later.
But it was empty.

 

[Imahomer]

Cute story.

 

[ET]

Great story.

 

[p51]

I can't recall exactly when this happened but I know about 15+ years ago, a Belgian (or French, I'm not sure) collector found a mess kit with a guy's name on it and spent a lot of time tracking down the vet. He was alive and living in the Midwest and the European guy went all the way to him to give it back. The crusty old coot actually told the reporter that he threw it in the basement afterward, saying, "I wouldn't give a dime for one of those" and how it meant nothing to him to have it back. I think of that story whenever I hear of things like this and often wonder how that Belgian guy must have felt when he heard that response.

 

[Imahomer]

I'd be crushed. :eusa_doh: Even though I understand that some people just don't care about that sort of thing.... my dad for one. He is the most non sentemental person I've ever met.

 

[DutchIndo]

The Veteran should have been more gracious. To be fair though what memories did that mess kit invoke ? I had a Boss at work who served as a door gunner in 'Nam. I gave him some paperbacks about what he did over there. As he accepted them I can see his hand shaking and his emotions.
I really felt bad about it because I did not want to resurrect bad memories.

 

[p51]

Got to thinking about that story and was determined to find it exactly. It took a while to find it online:

Soldier gets his mess kit back
St. Petersburg Times, Sep 14, 1993
Marvin Carroll never had much use for his Army mess kit and wasn't particularly saddened when he lost it after being wounded during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. But two Belgian historians found it last year in the Ardennes Forest and began searching for Carroll, a native of Vernal, Utah, who had etched his name and "Utah" on its side.
This summer, they delivered it to him. Carroll, now 69 and living in Salt Lake City, shook his head in disbelief and relegated the mess kit to his garage.
"I thought, `Well, what are they getting so stirred up about an old mess kit for?' " he said. "I wouldn't give a dime for one. Not even a new one."
But he does get a kick out of it.
"There's a lot of people in Vernal, my relations and that, who called and said, `Did you know they found your mess kit?' I said, `I'll be durned,' " Carroll said. The mess kit was found by Jean-Phillippe Speder and Jean-Louis Seel, whose hobby is scouring old battlegrounds. The two have helped locate the remains of four of 33 soldiers missing from the 99th Division, the unit in which Carroll was a rifleman.

Can you imagine how those Belgian guys must have felt when they read this?

 

[Matt Deckard]

Is he gonna be reimbursed for the whiskey somehow?