Trotsky1940 Posted May 12, 2019 Share #1 Posted May 12, 2019 I figured this belonged here. At the University I teach at one day I get a call from the mail room. They had a box with no return address and a note saying "I stole this hat from Col. Gabe as a prank and regretted it ever since, please return it to him." I'm the resident military nerd, so they called me. The hat in question is a early '60s custom job from Flight Ace, with O-5 "scrambled eggs" on the visor. There was a "property of" card in the crown so that made my job a little easier. Also, this hat was one of the smallest military hats I've ever come across, size 6 and 3/8s. It took about a day but I found that Don Gabe had been a Professor of Military Science for the ROTC program in the middle 1960s. He had a decent career as a Engineer, eventually retiring as a full Colonel. After I found that I set about looking for his family. That was kinda bleak as it looks like he lost two children early on and his wife passed in 2008. He died in 2013. I found his surviving son, I thought, so I shot an e-mail to him. And I was right! It was one of the weird "out of the blue" moments for him. So last week I sent the hat back to his son. A fun little story with a great ending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellcat_0413 Posted May 12, 2019 Share #2 Posted May 12, 2019 Great work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1canpara Posted May 12, 2019 Share #3 Posted May 12, 2019 Well done! What a great story and I'm sure his son was very appreciative of your efforts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sgtdorango Posted May 12, 2019 Share #4 Posted May 12, 2019 Thats great??....mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sundance Posted May 12, 2019 Share #5 Posted May 12, 2019 Great to see it returned to the family. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skypilot6670 Posted May 12, 2019 Share #6 Posted May 12, 2019 Well done. Congratulations. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
644td Posted May 14, 2019 Share #7 Posted May 14, 2019 Bravo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobgee Posted May 14, 2019 Share #8 Posted May 14, 2019 Excellent work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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