Gordon H. Yates was a tall, skinny redhead who joined the Navy during World War II when he was 17. Two years later, the young aviator was dead, beheaded by the enemy after his patrol bomber was shot down in waters off southeast Asia.
Saturday, Purple Hearts Reunited presented the medal he was awarded decades ago to his sister in southeastern Pennsylvania. Yates' family had lost track of the medal at least as far back as 1979 when his father died.
Yates' 80-year-old sister, Alva Brickner, now afflicted with Parkinson's disease, can't communicate very well, but her son said her reaction was unmistakable when he told her the medal had been found.
"She teared up," Daniel Brickner said. "She just kept writing, 'Thank you.'"
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