You may know Ty Raddue. He’s an irascible presence on Facebook and in Oregon politics.

You may also know that he’s had a very tough year. Besides fighting physical problems, his wife, Sandy, died mere months ago.

So it was that Ty’s son Zane put a smile on his Dad’s face by reuniting Ty with an emblem of his service for our country.

Zane explains:

At the beginning of this year, I ran across a posting in a Vietnam reenactors group on Facebook by someone in the UK looking for more info on a helmet he had recently picked up. In the pictures that were posted, you could faintly make out my fathers name written on the sweat band of the helmet liner.

After contacting the owner, he agreed to ship the helmet to me so I could give it back to my father, in exchange for a similar helmet. After a month or so of back and forth contact, and waiting for shipping both ways overseas, my father, a US Army Veteran who served in Vietnam from 1968-1969 was reunited with his helmet. At the time that it was given to him, he had no idea about this exchange, and it came as a complete surprise to him.

The story has been featured on MSN and other sites.

Nice reunion. See it for yourself below.

My father reunited with his issued Vietnam-era helmet

At the beginning of this year, I ran across a posting in a Vietnam reenactors group on Facebook by someone in the UK looking for more info on a helmet he had…