PHOTO PROVIDED / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
POW-MIA BRACELET … This POW-MIA bracelet (shown above) was discovered after Janice Herman had purchased a box of Hot Wheels toys for her two grandsons at the Route 127 Garage Sales.
By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
Discovering a POW-MIA bracelet inside a box of Hot Wheels cars was an unusual garage sale find for Bryan resident Janice Herman.
In July, Herman attended a garage sale just north of Pulaski as part of the Route 127, World’s Longest Garage Sale that was going on.
She had bought the Hot Wheels cars for two of her grandsons, Wyatt (8) and Sanford (5) Herman, to play with.
“My two kids were playing with them (Hot Wheels cars) at Hickory Acres Campground, and my husband (Allen) noticed my son (Wyatt) had a bracelet on his wrist,” said Katelyn Jo Herman, who is Janice Herman’s daughter-in-law. “While my husband looked at the bracelet, he noticed that it was a POW-MIA bracelet.”
Upon discovering the POW-MIA bracelet, the search began to track down either family members or the grateful owner.
From there, Katelyn Jo Herman’s Facebook post would draw a lot of responses, with people wondering who the soldier was and whether he had been killed in action in Vietnam.
The history behind the POW-MIA bracelet dates to the 1970s, when they were sold as fundraisers and eventually became popular with school children.
According to the Google website, the POW (Prisoners of War)-MIA (Missing in Action) bracelet featured a missing soldier’s name on it.
Wearing the bracelet was to honor the soldier who was missing, and it was a visual reminder of the price of war.
“My husband, who is on active duty in the U.S. Army, and both of us had known about the POW-MIA bracelets,” said Katelyn Jo Herman, who resides just south of Bryan. “It’s nothing new for us, but just finding one from the Vietnam era is weird. It’s not something that you see nowadays.”
Finding the rightful owner of the POW-MIA bracelet has been on the back of Katelyn Jo Herman’s mind.
“Maybe it was somebody that bought that bracelet back then, and it was sentimental to them and probably did some research something on it,” said Herman.
The POW-MIA bracelet had the name of John O’Grady engraved on it. Herman then did some research on him before finally posting it on Facebook.
“We had done some research about him (O’Grady) to see if we can find any information on him,” explained Herman.
“We have found that he was from New York, and what in the world is a bracelet from New York doing here in Ohio? So that’s when it sparked that maybe it was either a family member that lost it, or either they were wearing it, or went through a box of cars and lost it when they were digging in there.”
According to the USNA (United States Naval Academy) Memorial Hall website, U.S. Air Force Colonel John O’Grady was born on August 31, 1929, in New Hyde Park, New York.
O’Grady had graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and later served in the U.S. Air Force as a jet fighter pilot.
In January 1967, he was deployed to Southeast Asia, where he was a F-105 Pilot with the 357th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand.
O’Grady had served his country until April 10, 1967, when his F-105D jet was shot down over North Vietnam. He ejected from the plane, but no contact was made with him afterward.
He was eventually promoted to Colonel and was declared as Missing in Action before being officially declared dead in 1977.
For his outstanding military service, O’Grady was awarded the Silver Star, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Bronze Star medals, and a Purple Heart medal.
“So that’s why we sparked that as maybe it was a friend, maybe it’s a family member that had lost it, maybe it was just a random person off the street that forgot it,” said Herman. “We just want to see if it belongs to anybody and who it belongs to.”