"Campaign Ribbons?" Topic

Hey all….
I have a bit of a puzzle that I'm working on. My dad (71) was in the 101st Airborne. He's had his ribbons, medals, and such from people robbing them long ago. His papers burned in a house fire. One thing after another. Now Dad's starting to suffer from Alzheimer's, so we want to get a display box of medals, patches, and his flag put together for him.
Is there anywhere we can find patches, campaign ribbons, and such for certain eras? He was in 54-58.

Thanks for any help guys.

You can try contacting the Army records depot in St. Louis. Some of their records were lost during a flood, but they may have what you're looking for.

And by that I mean they may have your dad's DD214, his record of service with awards and decorations. The county he moved to when he ended his enlistment may have it also. It was a common instruction at the end of enlistment to have a copy stored at your county courthouse.

Jackson Co., Missouri has mine.

Thanks….will look into that.

Actually all you need is his DD 214 to figure out what he had. Then contact an ombudsman at the VA. They likely can tell you where to get ribbons. More often than not the service member's DD 214 is given to the service member at the time he exits the service. So you may want to peruse his personal records. It is possible St. Louis may have these but he is of the age group that lost theirs when the warhouse was damaged.

Good luck. You may need it before you are finished.

mjc

If you dont have his paperwork contact the 101st directly they will help you . We in the airborne will always help out those who served before us . So a fast email to Division HQ will get you the right contacts.

St. Louis is the quickest way to get his 214. Phone #: 800-318-5298. Make sure you have his Social Security # when you call. It speeds things up significantly. The VA or VFW can probably help you get the actual medals.

St Louis can help you with the DD214 (which lists his awards) but they won't be able to help you with the physical ribbons. There are any number of internet businesses that sell all the ribbons and even will build custom shadow box displays. Here is one I pulled up from a google search:
link

Alternately, you can go to antique stores, militaria shows, and ebay, but it will take longer.

Jeff

Your dad is most likely eligible for replacement medals, ribbons etc.

link

Once you know what he's entitled to give these folks a try. Pretty much everything you need can be done by them.
usmedals.com

Just as a point of information, although the Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis was hit by a fire many years ago and a number of records were destroyed or damaged, they are continuing to complete conservation on the records that were damaged by either the fire or the immense quantity of water used to extinguish it. Give them a try because you can never know if the records you seek were OK, destroyed, or restored.

link

Jim

Also some local VFW may have members that may have served during that era. You can ask them for help.

Jay Arnold:

I agree about the DD214 however looking through my fathers stuff he has 4 of them. Every time his enlistment was up he got a new dd214.

I got one when I got out of the Marine corp and it had all my ribbons and medals on it.

I got pulled back in for desert storm for 11 months. When I got out I got another DD214 with those ribbons.

The only problem you could run into is finding all the DD214.

Larry

reeves –

That is the norm, actually. One of the jobs I had was a Career Planner for a stint, and the rules were, a Marine had to be fully discharged (including issued a DD214) before he can be officially reenlisted.

EVERY DD214 is up-to-date as far as the whole career start to the date it is issued, they do not just cover the timeframe of the "new enlistment." So you (or the OP) should not need to collect all of them, just obtain the last one and you are good.

If your mileage varied, then someone did not follow the rules…