Smith: Closing in on the return of the Purple Heart found at the Sonoma County Airport

There are developments in the story of the Purple Heart medal found nearly two weeks ago in the terminal at the Sonoma County Airport.

Chiefly: It appears the military decoration was dropped accidentally by the daughter of a young soldier from Puerto Rico who was posthumously honored for sacrificing his life in North Korea in 1952.

The mystery of how the Purple Heart that bears the name of Miguel Angel Perez Y Loubriel came to lie on the floor alongside the airport's baggage carousel attracted three volunteer investigators with the Vermont-based Purple Hearts Reunited.

I spoke Monday with its founder, Zachariah Fike, a combat veteran who received a Purple Heart after he was wounded in Afghanistan and who serves now as a captain in the Army National Guard. Fike created a nonprofit foundation to return to vets or their families Purple Hearts and other medals for combat valor that were lost, stolen or traded as collectibles.

The tale of the well-worn medal found at the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport, he said, “is a great Christmas story.”

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THE RESEARCH by Purple Hearts Reunited found that 23-year-old Private Perez had been married for a bit more than a year when he enlisted in the U.S. Army, then left Puerto Rico and his career as a government electrician to serve in the Korean War.

He was killed on Aug. 8, 1952. Fike said the fallen soldier's wife in Puerto Rico gave birth to their daughter just seven days before she signed documents necessary to her receiving her husband's headstone.

Her daughter turned 64 this year. Fike said she carried the Purple Heart with her, as it was “all she knew of her dad.”

Still a resident of Puerto Rico, the woman came to Sonoma County late the week of Dec. 11, research by Purple Hearts Reunited revealed, to spend time with a family member, believed to be a niece, who lives in this area.

Fike said the medal is something that Private Perez's daughter “takes wherever she goes.”

“It just fell out of her bag.”

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HER NAME is something Fike held in confidence. When I mentioned that I'd been told independently her first name is Leyda, he confirmed that that's the name he has.

Fike said late last week Leyda and her California relative went to the airport to claim her father's Purple Heart. As he understands it, the airport staff did not give it to her.

Fike said Leyda evidently did not bring along identification sufficient to prove her relationship to Miguel Angel Perez. Beyond that, Fike believes that although the local relative of the Spanish-speaking Leyda was there to interpret, a language barrier complicated the conversation.

Fike doesn't fault airport employees for seeking to make sure the visitor from Puerto Rico is the Purple Heart's rightful owner. Noting the lengths the staff has gone to publicize the discovery of the medal, he said, “the airport from the beginning has been doing the right thing.”

Monday was a holiday for employees of the airport manager's office, and I couldn't find anyone in a position to speak about the attempt to get PV2 Perez's medal back into the right hands.

It will be surprising if that doesn't happen soon.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.