Lost war medal found in pig pen, returned to family

CARDWELL, Mo. -- The family of Homer J. Moore of Cardwell had always wondered what happened to the Purple Heart he received for bravery in World War II. According to his family, it's been missing for more than 60 years.

Recently, their days of wondering came to an end when Chris Martin, an 18-year-old senior at Southland High School, found the long lost medal underneath the mud in the FFA pig pens behind the high school. How it got there nobody knows.

According to Sherry Drury, Moore's daughter, her father was in World War II and fought in the European Theater against the Germans. During the fighting, commanders in his unit asked for volunteers to scout the area for German troops. Moore and a friend both answered the call.

As they began their mission, they came to an area that, unbeknownst to them, was crawling with German soldiers. When Moore and his friend realized this, it was too late and shooting broke out. As they were trying to get back to their unit, Moore was shot through the left ear and the bullet went into the back of his head.

According to Drury, her father woke up on the ground beside the tent which housed the Medical Hospital in the field. The doctors and nurses all thought he was dead since he was so bloody. They had performed triage on him and had determined that he had no vital life signs so they had placed him with the other fallen soldiers.

Drury said her father told her he remembered waking up, needing to use the restroom. He stood up and that was when the medical personnel realized he was alive. He was immediately taken into the medical tent where the doctors and nurses began working on his head wound, trying to stabilize his condition.

The family said medical personnel could not give him any medication, so to keep his blood pressure up, they began arguing with him. After the doctors and nurses determined he was out of immediate danger, he was sent to a nearby hospital in the city to recuperate. Later, he was shipped back to the states and discharged in 1945.

However, he still had a period of rehabilitation to face and even though he recovered. Drury said that her father did experience some post-war trauma, saying that whenever children would shoot off firecrackers, he would try to take cover because it brought back memories of soldiers shooting at him.

It's unclear whether Moore was awarded the Purple Heart Medal before he came back to the states or whether he received it once he got home. Whatever the case, once received, the medal went into his mother's trunk, along with letters he had written and sent home, including one that read, "I'm alive. I'm OK. Don't worry."

Some time later Moore's mother was looking at some letters in the trunk and she noticed the medal was missing. No one knew what had happened to it.

At one point in time, Drury's father and her mother, Maxine, thought that an acquaintance had stolen the medal and sold it for "a pint of whiskey." That theory was never proven and that left the family with one question: What had happened to the medal?

Moore and his wife have since passed away, but their daughter now knows the answer to that question, thanks to Martin.

Martin said it's always been his responsibility to take care of his pig that he raises for the FFA Club and he goes down to the pig pens every day at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. He said he also helps a friend take care of her pig and it was in this particular pen that the medal was found.

Martin said that all the times he had been down to the pens, he had never noticed anything out of the ordinary until one day when he saw the pig digging up and trying to chew something that appeared to be a broken necklace. When he bent down to pick it up, he saw that it was a medal. It was caked with mud and when he wiped it off, he saw the words, "Purple Heart" on it. He then turned it over and saw the name, Homer J. Moore, inscribed on the back.

Martin had a friend whose last name was Moore so he thought he might know the owner. However, when the friend said he didn't, he thought of his neighbor, Wanda Lee, city council member and longtime resident of Cardwell. She remembered Homer J. Moore and was well acquainted with his daughter, Drury, of Paragould, Ark. She had just talked with Drury a few days before the medal was found. Lee contacted Drury and told her the good news.

According to Drury, just a few days before she got the call from Lee, she had actually been to the cemetery to visit her father's grave. She had been facing some trials of late and was wishing and praying that somehow she could talk to her dad and have him comfort her the way he used to do. A few days later, the call came about the medal.

"I was overjoyed, very emotional," Drury said. "I've never seen it, and I'm 52 years old. I thank God for everything and the right circumstances for it to show up and that Chris found it."

Martin said when she came and met with him to pick it up, she was crying. In exchange for finding the medal, Drury offered Martin a reward. Martin refused.

"She offered me money but I refused to take it because I said it was the right thing to do," Martin said.

He said he never thought of keeping the medal.

"I don't like doing things that will haunt me later."