Goodwill Store Searching for Family of Navy Sailor Whose Purple Heart May Have Been Mistakenly Donated

When a Goodwill worker in Tucson, Arizona, unearthed a Purple Heart from a donation box in June, it didn’t exactly fit in with the box’s other household items. So Goodwill decided to try to track down the family of the soldier who earned it, CNN reports.

That soldier was Nick D’Amelio Jr., according to the inscription on the medal, which is also inscribed with “S2C, USN.” Military records confirm that he was a U.S. Navy (denoted by the "USN") seaman second class (“S2C”) who was reported missing in action during World War II, after Japanese surface forces gunned down the USS Little in the Solomon Islands on September 5, 1942.

D’Amelio was declared dead the following year, and is now memorialized in Walls of the Missing at The Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in Taguig City, Philippines. He was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously.

Judith Roman Bucasas, director of marketing of Goodwill Industries of Southern Arizona, told CNN that she thinks it was an accident that the Purple Heart was donated in the box of housewares. After all, it’s one of the most prestigious awards a member of the military can receive. George Washington himself created the award in 1782 (though he named it the Badge of Military Merit), and General Douglas MacArthur revived it on the bicentennial of Washington’s birthday in 1932, renaming it the Purple Heart.

Goodwill is collaborating with Purple Hearts Reunited, a nonprofit organization that reunites lost or stolen medals with veterans or their families, but since they haven’t had any luck finding D’Amelio’s relatives yet, they decided to call in reinforcements via social media. On Monday, Goodwill posted photos of the Purple Heart on the Goodwill Industries of Southern Arizona Facebook page, and asked people to please call 520-623-5174 extension 7039 with any information on D’Amelio or his family.

This isn’t the first time a Purple Heart has been discovered in an Arizona Goodwill—in 2016, a couple found the medal at the jewelry counter, and, with the help of the Facebook community, successfully reunited it with its recipient’s family. Hopefully, the story of Nick D’Amelio Jr.’s Purple Heart will have just as happy an ending.