An ailing Vietnam veteran who was honored with the coveted Purple Heart was “heartbroken” when a thief made off with an American flag he proudly hung on the porch at his California home.
James White, 85, decorated his stoop with an American flag to honor his two decades of service with the US Army, and to recognize the sacrifices made by his fellow infantrymen.
When he woke up one morning in January, he noticed his American flag had been snatched from his doorstep at his Sacramento home — pole and all.
His home security camera captured a white man wearing a security vest, black hat, and medical mask removing the pole with the flag still attached and disappearing down the street, according to the footage shared with KCRA.
“That hurts me. That somebody would do something like that, steal a flag,” White told the outlet.
“I fought for that flag. I mean that flag was there before I fought, but I fought for that flag. It’s an American flag, it’s for the United States. For everybody,” White added in an impassioned plea.
White’s daughter, Daisy Hernandez, said that the theft was a flagrant “violation” that “really hurt him.”
Hernandez explained that White is already dealing with more than his fair “share of health conditions,” including stage 4 prostate cancer and chronic kidney disease.
“They have no idea who that flag belonged to or the story behind the man it belonged to. It’s just not right,” she told the outlet.
In his heyday, White was a tanker in the Fourth of the 68th Armor Regiment. He was briefly stationed in Germany before he was relocated to Vietnam at the start of the war, which spanned most of his military career.
White candidly told the outlet that they certainly “wouldn’t want to be” in Vietnam during the war — on account of the freakishly large snakes his unit found in the forests.
After White retired from the military, he spent another two decades working for the US Postal Service.
His family filed a police report in hopes of tracking down the thief and the wayward flag.
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