purple heart medal

[daifuling]

I have recently aquired a purple heart medal from someone in my family. This medal did not belong to any family members. Is there any way to find out who a medal was awarded to? I know that it is Korean War issued and maybe the receipient is still alive and would like the medal returned to their possession.

[Redleg]

There were about 137,000 Purple Hearts awarded during the Korean conflict.

Q. The government maintains a list of all PH recipients.
A. Not true. The only military medal list authorized/budgeted by Congress is Medal of Honor. The only service branch that maintains a "tape" of its PH recipients is the Marine Corps (due to the small size of the Corps). However, Marine Corps 'tapes' of PH recipients is neither required by Congress to be publicly accessible nor utilizable to confirm authorization or award eligibility.) Marine Corps 'tapes' are used solely for internal audit purposes. The Army, Air Forces, Navy and Coast Guard does not maintain a historic list of its PH recipients.

[Lee Ragan]

Is a name engraved on the back? Even if it is named, tracking a medal back to the original owner is VERY hard. Now, some of the guys over on www.usmilitariaforum.com are pretty good tracking down information on veterans, but the more information you have, the better the chances.

[Ben Shotalot]

I think the engraving of names stopped around the WWII timeframe.