Page 16 - IAV Digital Magazine #500

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
U.S. Soldier's Family Reunited With Button Found In Australia
By Ben Hooper
June 17 (UPI) -
- An Australian couple who found a U.S. Army sol- dier's tag and button on the site of a former base in Queensland
were able to reunite them with the family of the man who lost them 80 years earlier.
Jasmine Neal and Jason Van Sleeuwen said
they were using their metal detec- tor at the former site of a U.S. Army base when they found two small objects that initially appeared to be coins.
grabbed it off of Jasmine and I started pulling all the dirt off of it and I realized what it was," Van Sleeuwen told WKOW-TV.
"I
The items were a button from a sol- dier's uniform and a tag bearing a serial number.
The pair searched the serial number on an Army data- base and discov- ered it belonged to Harold Henderson, an Army sharpshoot- er who was sta- tioned in Queensland dur- ing World War II.
A little more research online led them to the Facebook profile of Wisconsin resi- dent Melissa Goodman, Henderson's granddaughter.
Goodman said she initially thought the mes- sage was spam, but realized it wasn't when she saw the photos the couple sent
to her.
Van Sheeuwen and Neal mailed the items to Goodman, who presented them to her mother, Sue Goodman, Henderson's daughter.
"She was sur- prised and she cried," Goodman said of her moth- er. "We all cried. Everyone's cried."
Goodman said her family was grateful to the couple for giving them back a piece of her grandfather's life.
"Even though he can't see that we have the tag I just feel like he's with us," Goodman said. "It's just another piece of him that's back home."
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine