A Southern California woman who grew up knowing little of her father — a heroic casualty of World War II — is now the proud owner of his long-lost battle medals, including a Silver Star and Purple Heart.

Hyla Merin's mother never spoke about the Army officer who died before she was born. The scraps of information she gathered from other relatives were hazy: 2nd Lt. Hyman Markel was a rabbi's son, brilliant at mathematics, the brave winner of battlefield honors who died sometime in 1945.

Aside from wedding photos of Markel in uniform, Merin never glimpsed him.

About four months ago, the manager of a West Hollywood apartment building where Merin's mother lived in the 1960s found a box containing papers and the Purple Heart while cleaning out some lockers in the laundry room, Merin said.

The manager contacted Purple Hearts Reunited, a nonprofit organization that returns lost or stolen medals to vets or their families.

A search led to Merin.

On Sunday, she received the Purple Heart, along with a Silver Star she never knew her father had won and a half-dozen other medals.

Mark J. Terrill / AP

Army Capt. Zachariah L. Fike presents Hyla Merin with a plaque Sunday that contains medals presented posthumously to her father after they were recently discovered in an apartment where Merin's mother and aunts had once lived.

Merin wiped away tears as the Silver Star was pinned to her lapel during a short ceremony attended by friends and family at her home in Westlake Village, a community straddling the Ventura and Los Angeles county lines. The other medals were presented on a plaque.

"It just confirms what a great man he was," Merin said tearfully. "He gave up his life for our country and our freedom. I'll put it up in my house as a memorial to him and to those who served."

Merin's mother, Celia, married Markel in 1941 when he already was in the military. They met at a Jewish temple in Buffalo, N.Y.

Markel was killed in the last days of World War II in May 1945 in Italy's Po Valley while fighting German troops as an officer with an infantry unit, said Zachariah Fike, the Vermont Army National Guard captain who founded Purple Hearts Reunited.

AP / Provided by Hyla Merin

This undated image provided by Hyla Merin shows 2nd Lt. Hyman Markel with his bride, Celia Markel.

"The accounts suggest that he was out on patrol and he got ambushed and he charged ahead and basically took out a machine gun position to save the rest of his guys," said Fike, whose organization has returned some two dozen medals. "For that, he paid the ultimate sacrifice."

He was awarded the Purple Heart and Silver Star posthumously, but for some reason the family never was told about the Silver Star and it was never sent to them, Fike said.

Merin's mother never talked in detail to her daughter about Markel.

"It was a very difficult topic for her. When my father died, she was seven months pregnant with me," Merin said.

Her mother briefly remarried when Merin was 10, but her stepfather died three years later, Merin said.

Her mother moved into the apartment in 1960 and may have placed the Purple Heart in the locker then, Merin said. Her mother lived there until 1975 before moving away, and Merin's aunt lived there until 2005. Another aunt lived there until 2009.

They never spoke about what was in the locker, and the family must have missed the box when they took away the aunts' possessions in 2005 and 2009, Merin said.

Merin said that in addition to the Purple Heart, which Pike kept for framing, the box contained letters and other papers, and her father's Jewish prayer book.

"I found it very hard to look at. A lot of them were condolence letters," she said.

Merin's mother was told about the discovery of the Purple Heart but didn't live to see it — she died Feb. 1 at age 94.

Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed to this story.

Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

Gen. Sidney Berry offered a Christmas update to his wife from Vietnam in 1966.

Across three pages — typed on Christmas Eve 1966 from a village in South Vietnam — the soldier’s words to his wife dance seamlessly from a description of singing carols in the jungle to his latest enemy kills to, finally, a vow of eternal affection. 

“Last night we had a candle-lighting ceremony ... Gasoline drums welded together end to end with a white Noel on the side. Electric light on top covered by red cellophane ... Reindeer and Santa Claus at front. It was raining,” Army Gen. Sidney B. Berry wrote to his wife. He next reveals how he recently had perched in a helicopter door, firing his rifle at men below: “We all were shooting. And we killed several ...”

“Lovely Anne, I love thee,” Berry closed. “Perhaps the best aspect of this whole period of separation is our increased appreciation and understanding of each other. I love thee, and I will devote the rest of my life to making love to thee.” He signs off: “Thy wearied professional, Sid.”

This time of year, communication from combat lines has long provided a poignant piece of Christmas.

Today's troops, for the most part, send their holiday wishes via email or Skype video chat sessions. But life was much different before technology began shadowing  service men and women so far from home.

At the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pa., thousands of notes, authored by service members from conflicts past, are painstakingly stored in acid-free folders, tucked inside protective boxes, and categorized by family, forming numerous narrow rows flanked by shelves 10 feet high. Many of the correspondences, once jammed in attic boxes, have been donated to the archive. Museum directors retrieved several dozen Christmas missives for NBC News to review.

From the Civil War to the Vietnam War, troops ranging from privates to a general struck the same literary chords — no matter the success of their conflict, their era, or the location of their last battle. They often chronicle violence during a moment meant to celebrate peace. They typically express humor, perhaps to put families at ease. And they reveal yearnings to be back with gathered families and friends.

“A lot of people wrote letters to their mothers at Christmas. I guess it’s a time you really start to think about home, really start to think about where you come from,” said Conrad Crane, chief of historical services at the Army Heritage and Education Center.

Some of the letters offered to NBC News were were originally mailed to nieces, parents and wives. 

Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

John T. Cheney, an officer in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, wrote to his wife from Mississippi in 1862.

On Dec. 28, 1862, five months before the U.S. Army’s siege of Vicksburg, 1st Illinois Light Artillery Capt. John T. Cheney sat at a humid encampment, he wrote, near the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi and scribbled some lines to “My Dear Wife.” Her name was Mary. He also had two children at home at the time, including an 11-year-old son, military archives show. On now-yellowed paper in cursive style, Cheney mentioned to Mary that he was, “waiting to retreat” — revealing, however, he believed his unit “ought not to be compelled to do so.” He told her that he and his men were living off of half bread rations and three-quarter meat rations but he reassured her that he was “not yet out of medicine.” And he acknowledged that on Dec. 24 he had procured three gallons of whiskey for his men: “We had a very pleasant Christmas Eve.”

“I am quite well and could I only know that you were well at home I would be thankful,” Cheney wrote. Less than two years later, he would accompany Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous march on Atlanta. “I wish I could step in and stop with you all tonight ... Give my love to all of the friends and kiss the little ones for me a time or two ... Good night.”

Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

While training to head to combat in World War I, Adam F. Glatfelter offered some soothing words to a niece.

Not surprisingly, the intended audience of each letter, Crane said, generally shaped the tone of words from the front. The museum has “steamy” notes from husbands to wives, he said, and fatherly notes to children. 

On Dec. 26, 1917, Adam F. Glatfelter penned some thoughts to his niece, Carrie, from Camp Gordon in Atlanta. The training center was built to prepare men to head to the trenches of Europe to fight during World War I. In cursive hand, using a pencil, he told her of spending Christmas Day playing music with his military orchestra for the local bishop. He joked that his ensemble was quickly becoming “pretty popular” with folks in Atlanta. He listed his holiday meal: two turkey dinners. And he thanked her for sending a spool of thread.

“Do not worry about me,” he wrote, signing as “Uncle Frank.”

Holiday menus — and pleas not to fret — color many Christmas letters home. On Dec. 25, 1944, Navy Pfc. Clark S. Crane dashed off a one-page note to his parents in a V-mail, short for “Victory Mail.” The system offered troops templates bordered by red ink. Their words would be censored by the military — a stamp in one corner validated the content had been approved — then copied to film and printed back to paper before being placed in the U.S. mail.

Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

A V-Mail from Navy sailor Clark Crane, sent at Christmas 1944 to his parents.

Crane was anchored near the Philippines at the time, according to the Army Heritage and Education Center, although his letter notes he was “Somewhere at Sea.” He tells his parents how he had “just finished extending season’s greetings ... good natured but well felt” to other men on board via a Christmas poem that he authored with another sailor. He offered one line for his folks. 

“‘Shed a tear in your Christmas beer since there ain’t gonna be no egg in it this year.’ Pretty corny, eh?” Crane wrote, noting that was his third Christmas spent at war and away from his parents’ house at 285. N. Maple Ave. in Kingston, Pa.

“Lined up ... for Christmas dinner with tender turkey and cranberries on the menu,” he wrote. “All of it was very good but there was a deficit of brown skin and the savory smell of a Christmas turkey at good old 285 North Maple. Lots of Love, Clark.”

Another poem — albeit a modern, bloody take on the classic “A Visit from St. Nicholas” — formed a Christmas letter home from Douglas G. Anderson, then stationed in Korea. Neatly hand-written on green paper, the note contained no date or location. Records show he was an Army sergeant who would have been about 23 at the time.

Courtesy of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

A Christmas poem - about a battle - penned by Douglas G. Anderson from Korea.

“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the tent was the odor of fuel oil. The stovepipe was bent. The shoe pacs were hung by the oil stove with care in hope that they’d issue each man a new pair. The weary GIs were sacked out in their beds. Visions of sugar babes danced through their heads,” Anderson wrote.

“When up on the ridge-line there arose such a clatter, a Chinese machine gun had started to chatter. I rushed to my rifle and threw back the bolt, the rest of my tent mates arose with a jolt.” Staying in rhyme, Anderson described the orders shouted by his platoon sergeant, Kelly.   " 'Get up on that on hilltop and silence that red and don’t you come back till you’re sure that he’s dead.' Then putting his thumb in front of his nose, Sergeant Kelly took leave of us shivering Joes. But we all heard him say in a voice soft and light ‘Merry Christmas to all, may you live through the night."

After the birth of the Internet and as modern service members waged war in Iraq during two conflicts and, now, in Afghanistan, the art of the Christmas letter home has largely been replaced by Skype sessions, said Col. Matt Dawson, director Army Heritage and Education Center.

In historic missives from combat zones, “people bared their souls,” Dawson said. Some of the authors couldn’t be sure that those words wouldn’t be the last their families would receive from them.

Today, such intimate moments are shared during one-one-one cyber chats that rarely, if ever, are saved — unless the troops use a new service called TroopTree.com in which they can record, upload and send personal video messages for family or friends, and do so at no cost.

In most cases, however, sweet sentiments shared during Skype sessions from war zones are simply here and gone.

“So in 20, 30 or 40 years," Dawson said, "when we’re looking for this kind of stuff from the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will be more difficult to find," — unless a service member takes time to mail a post card home, as Marine Sgt. Brian Snell did this month. He sent the card to his wife Liz and their two daughters. The front shows a red Christmas ornament stamped with an “Operation Enduring Freedom” logo, atop an American flag.

"Hey love, Hope you girls have a Merry Christmas and New Year. I miss you all,” Snell, 30, wrote to his family, who live in the San Diego area. This is his first deployment. He was sent to Afghanistan in autumn.

“There is something about being able to read his handwriting to make the world feel a little smaller, like he isn't on the other side of it,” Liz Snell said. “Unlike a phone call, a letter lingers. You can have a bad day, pick up the card, and he is here.”

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Even though he is 92, Howard Hensleigh of Menlo Park, Calif., remembers 1944 like it was yesterday. That was the year the Army World War II veteran killed a German soldier during a gunbattle in southern France.

"The sergeant that I'd chosen to fire the first shot fired, and of course they (the German soldiers) hit the dirt. And there's firing going back and forth all the time,"  Hensleigh said.

Hensleigh, who was an intelligence officer and assistant platoon leader, says he knew the German soldiers were not going to give up without a fight. He says he gave them several chances to give up. But a man he later came to find out was named Georg Reick give him no other choice. Hensleigh shot and killed him during a firefight. Hensleigh said he felt it was something he had to do in order to save his men.

"When you take prisoners you get all the information off of all of them," Hensleigh said. "I hate to admit it but they don’t end up with their watches rings and anything else."

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In this case, Reick was stripped of personal artifacts, such as pictures of his wife and family and his wedding photo: It was common to confiscate the goods from the dead Germans at the time. Hensleigh took them, and put his enemy's belongings in his personal  scrap book.

They stayed there for 68 years until a young French writer named Jean Loup came along. Loup was interested in interviewing WWII veterans who served their country in southern France for a documentary he was working on. While researching online, Loup found Hensleigh. Loup flew to the San Francisco Peninsula to meet Hensleigh, and during their meeting, learned of his story and started to connect the dots.

Loup then contacted the company that developed pictures. But the company was no longer there.

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He then sent them to the mayor of the small German town where the soldier lived.

The mayor recognized the dead soldier and put Hensleigh in touch with the soldier’s grandson whose name is also Georg Reick.

The grandson and Hensleigh now email each other back and forth. Hensleigh gave Reick's grandson information he's been longing for and Reick has pictures he thought he would never get.

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The light of day shone on a World War II fighter plane Friday for the first time in almost 68 years, when crews recovered the crashed aircraft from the waters of Lake Michigan.

On Dec. 28, 1944, a FM-2 "Wildcat" Fighter aircraft crashed and sank during a training mission in Waukegan Harbor, NBCChicago.com reported. Engine failure was blamed, and the plane was left in about 200 feet of water, according to NBCChicago.com.

Friday's recovery, which had an audience of nearly 100, was the first milestone toward getting the plane restored and eventually in a museum, the Chicago Tribune reported. A 78-year-old pilot from Mettawa, Ill. paid for the recovery, according to the newspaper.

"It’s a pretty inspiring thing," pilot Charles Greenhill told the Tribune. "You think you get used to it, but you don’t."

The plane is expected to be transported to Greenhill's Kenosha, Wis., hangar and then to Pensacola, Fla., where it'll undergo a full restoration -- which could take at least five years -- at the National Museum of Naval Aviation, the Tribune reported. It's hoped that the plane will permanently reside in a proposed museum on the former Naval Air Station Glenview site in Illinois, according to the newspaper.

Courtesy NBCChicago.com

Crews remove a FM-2 "Wildcat" Fighter aircraft on Friday that crashed during a training mission on Dec. 28, 1944, in Waukegan Harbor.

Related: WWII veteran returns wedding photos 68 years later

The "Wildcat" aircraft was one of the planes used to train Navy pilots during World War II, and they'd practice flying from the naval air station and from aircraft carriers, the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago reported. During the war, over 17,000 pilots trained over Lake Michigan, according to Rockford, Ill. NBC affiliate WREX.

"This thing would've been a piece of junk,” Greenhill told the Daily Herald. "Instead, it will become a piece of history that people will be able to see and appreciate."

The recovery happened on a day of related significance: Friday was the 71st anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which claimed thousands of lives and launched the United States into World War II, according to The Associated Press.

Related: Pearl Harbor dead remembered on 71st anniversary
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Getty Images

Smoke pours from wrecked American warships after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Updated at 5:54 p.m. ET: More than 2,000 people at Pearl Harbor and many more around the country are marking the 71st anniversary of the Japanese attack that killed thousands of people and launched the United States into World War II.

The USS Michael Murphy, a recently christened ship named after a Pearl Harbor-based Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan, sounded its ship's whistle Friday to start a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., marking the exact time the bombing began in 1941.

Crew members lined the edge of the Navy guided-missile destroyer in the harbor where the USS Arizona and USS Utah, battleships that sank in the attack, still lie. Hawaii Air National Guard F-22 fighter jets flew overhead in a special "missing man" formation to break the silence.

"Let us remember that this is where it all began. Let us remember that the arc of history was bent at this place 71 years ago today and a generation of young men and women reached deep and rose up to lead our nation to victory," Rhea Suh, Interior Department assistant secretary, told the crowd. "Let us remember and be forever grateful for all of their sacrifices."

About 30 survivors, many using walkers and canes, attended the commemoration.

Edwin Schuler, of San Jose, Calif., said he remembered going up to the bridge of his ship, the USS Phoenix, to read a book on a bright, sunny Sunday morning in 1941 when he saw planes dropping bombs.

"I thought: 'Whoa, they're using big practice bombs.' I didn't know," said Schuler, 91.

Schuler said he's returned for the annual ceremony about 30 times because it's important to spread the message of remembering Pearl Harbor.

Ewalt Shatz, 89, said returning to Pearl Harbor "keeps the spirit going, the remembering of what can happen."

Shatz, who now lives in Riverside, Calif., was on board the USS Patterson that morning when the alarm sounded. His more experienced shipmates were down below putting a boiler back together so Shatz found himself manning a 50-caliber machine gun for the first time. The Navy credited him with shooting a Japanese plane.

"That was some good shooting," said U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Cecil Haney who recounted Shatz' experience in the keynote address. "Thank you for your courage and tenacity — our nation is truly grateful."

Online, Pearl Harbor became a popular topic on Facebook and other social networks, trending worldwide on Twitter and Google Plus as people marked the anniversary with status updates, personal stories of family and photos.

Eugene Tanner / AP

Taps are played during a ceremony commemorating the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Friday, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The Navy and National Park Service, which is part of the Interior Department, hosted the ceremonies held in remembrance of the 2,390 service members and 49 civilians killed in the attack.

Friday's event gave special recognition to members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, who flew noncombat missions during World War II, and to Ray Emory, a 91-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor who has pushed to identify the remains of unknown servicemen.

The ceremony also includes a Hawaiian blessing, songs played by the U.S. Pacific Fleet band and a rifle salute from the U.S. Marine Corps.

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President Barack Obama marked the day on Thursday by issuing a presidential proclamation, calling for flags to fly at half-staff on Friday and asking all Americans to observe the day of remembrance and honor military service members and veterans.

"Today, we pay solemn tribute to America's sons and daughters who made the ultimate sacrifice at Oahu," Obama said in a statement. "As we do, let us also reaffirm that their legacy will always burn bright — whether in the memory of those who knew them, the spirit of service that guides our men and women in uniform today, or the heart of the country they kept strong and free."

Daniel Inouye, Hawaii's senior U.S. senator and a member of an Army unit of Japanese-Americans who volunteered to fight in World War II, said the Pearl Harbor attack evoked anger, fierce patriotism and racism.

"Our way of life has always, and will always be, protected and preserved by volunteers willing to give their lives for what we believe in," the Democrat said.

The Navy and park service will resume taking visitors to the USS Arizona Memorial, which sits atop the sunken battleship, after the ceremony.

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Why do some people reject the existence of PTSD?

The topic is touchy. Even asking the question is slammed as irresponsible.

“Why on Earth would you try to put out something that states combat PTSD isn't a true affliction? Or even try to debunk it? Or to put questions into the minds of society? In the first 155 days of 2012, we lost 154 men,” Amy Cotta, an author and the mother of a Marine wrote in an email to NBC News. Her message arrived minutes after she learned NBC News was seeking to interview a PTSD denier.

Despite exhaustive scientific studies that have explored the symptoms, causes, diagnoses, and prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder, hardcore skeptics remain.

They exist within the military, where some leaders openly call PTSD a mental weakness, according to mental health advocates. David Weidman, who did two tours in Afghanistan and was diagnosed with PTSD, said all of his senior non-commissioned officers advised him not to seek treatment, instead suggesting he “just put your head down and keep going” in order to maintain any chance at a promotion.

They exist within the veteran community. Kevin R.C. “Hognose” O’Brien, who operates a blog called “WeaponsMan” and identifies himself as “a former Special Forces weapons man,” wrote in July that PTSD was a “quack” diagnosis, “invented” to clump “any odd and many normal behaviors.” He added: “If a vet is wound up tight? PTSD! If he or she is calm? Hypercontrolling due to PTSD! Lose weight, gain weight, maintain weight, those are all PTSD markers. Get in fights? PTSD, natch. And avoid fights? Well, clearly it's .... are you starting to get the idea?” O’Brien declined to be interviewed for this story.

And they exist within medicine. In late September, Washington, D.C. psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Tarantolo authored an op-ed piece titled: “PTSD, The Grand Scapegoat.” In it, Tarantolo described PTSD as a “pseudo-diagnosis” and held that “the PTSDer gets an enormous amount of pseudo-sympathy.” On Friday, Tarantolo’s voicemail message said he was out of the country on vacation.

To Afghanistan veteran Weidman, most people who so stridently dismiss PTSD have simply failed to read the available scientific literature on the subject and are, he said, “uneducated.”

But Weidman acknowledged that different people possess varying degrees of mental “resiliency,” underscoring the slippery nature of diagnosing anxiety disorders. That means, he added, that if an entire platoon collectively endures the same moment of extreme combat violence, not every platoon member will ultimately feel the symptoms of post-traumatic stress. According to the Mayo Clinic, those signs can include “flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.”

“There are people who can experience something who have no side effects. It could be that person (who ends up being a denier),” said Weidman, a student at Penn State-Lehigh Valley. “Or it could be the person who is extremely uneducated and chauvinistic, who says a guy who gets diagnosed with PTSD ‘is not being a man.’ You’re going to have a perfect storm within the individual who’s going to be that outlier, who says: ‘It doesn’t exist.’

“Or, it could be the person who actually has post-traumatic stress, who is not seeking help, who is more living up to society’s ideal male image of being strong and being resilient,” he added. “Those people going to make even more noise.”

Mental health experts say the occasional repudiation of PTSD is merely an extension of the larger societal taint associated with anxiety or mood disorders.

Click here for more military-related coverage from NBC News.

“It comes back down to the stigma of mental illness,” said Jean Teichroew, spokeswoman for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. “Military members also are afraid to speak out because it’s seen as a weakness. The VA has programs to try to combat that, too. But when you have a sergeant who doesn’t think you should be afraid of a bomb going off near you or seeing a dead body, that’s another issue.”

Still, the rate of diagnosed PTSD cases among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is higher than the rate of cases associated with men and women who served in past conflicts. That abrupt spike has sparked an ongoing debate within American and British academia as to how common PTSD truly is among military personnel and veterans.

“The suffering of people with PTSD is very real whether we label it an ‘anxiety disorder’ or not. As for the skeptics, some of them may believe that a proportion of veterans without the disorder may report symptoms to secure service-connected disability compensation payments for PTSD,” said Harvard University psychology professor Richard J. McNally. He has penned more then 320 publications on anxiety disorders, including PTSD.

“According to (Department of Veterans Affairs) data reported late last spring, 45 percent of all veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have applied for service-connected disability compensation, and 31 percent have secured it already. This figure includes all forms of medical problems, however, not just PTSD," McNally said. "The percentage of veterans of World War II and Vietnam who obtained disability compensation is 11 percent and 16 percent, respectively.”

In 2011, the VA listed the three most common service-connected disabilities among veterans receiving federal compensation that year: tinnitus (ringing in the ears) at 10.9 percent, hearing loss at 7.5 percent, and PTSD at 5.3 percent.

Is PTSD being over-diagnosed in post-9/11 veterans?

“Yes. I think it is,” said Simon Wessely, vice dean of academic psychiatry at King’s College in London. “I think that despite the formal criteria, there is a confusion sometimes (about) the normal emotional responses to war — my father still has nightmares about his World War II service in Royal Navy and he is 87, but he doesn't have PTSD.

“I also think that, for example, depression often gets under diagnosed, and substance misuse also,” Wessely said. “Our evidence also shows, for example, that quite often the triggers for what becomes labeled as PTSD is not combat exposure but actually a reflection of problems back home. It is important that we remember that not every mental health problem in theater is PTSD."

Despite the loose diagnoses or cases of outright PTSD fraud, to those in medicine and the military (post and present) who deny PTSD altogether, Wessely offers three final words: “They are wrong.”

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Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University researchers found these 55-gallon drums at a known chemical weapons dumpsite near the mouth of the Mississippi River. They suspect mustard gas was leaking out.

Oil and bombs don’t mix, yet there’s millions of pounds of unexploded World War II munitions dumped in the Gulf of Mexico that pose a risk to offshore drilling and the environment, researchers say. 

The military carried out the dumping from 1946 to 1970 — including off the Pacific, Atlantic and Hawaii coasts — so it's no secret. But now that some of the containers used to store the munitions are more than 60 years old, the researchers say it's time to see them as a threat.

"The bottom line is that these bombs are a threat today and no one knows how to deal with the situation," Texas A&M oceanographer William Bryant said in a statement ahead of a briefing he'll give at a weapons disposal conference. "If chemical agents are leaking from some of them, that’s a real problem. If many of them are still capable of exploding, that’s another big problem."

Photos taken during surveys show that some of the chemical weapons canisters, such as those that carried mustard gas, appear to be leaking materials and are damaged, Bryant and others on his team reported.

The surveys have turned up 10 dump sites at 60 and 100 miles out — and one of them had a pipeline running through it.

Texas has the closest dump, followed by Louisiana, "not far from where the Mississippi River delta area is," Bryant said. "Some shrimpers have recovered bombs and drums of mustard gas in their fishing nets.

Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University researchers found this unexploded, 500-pound bomb at a dumpsite near the mouth of the Mississippi River in 2008.

"No one seems to know where all of them are and what condition they are in today," he added. "The best guess is that at least 31 million pounds of bombs were dumped, but that could be a very conservative estimate.

"These were all kinds of bombs, from land mines to the standard military bombs, also several types of chemical weapons," he said. "Our military also dumped bombs offshore that they got from Nazi Germany right after World War II.

"Is there an environmental risk? We don’t know, and that in itself is reason to worry," he said. 

The hazards pose even more of a risk as the Obama administration and energy companies pick up the pace of drilling after the 2010 BP oil spill.

Ironically, unexploded ordnance was found in the offshore zone known as Mississippi Canyon where the BP well was drilled.

Pentagon

This chart lists some of the munitions dumpsites in the Gulf of Mexico, and what's there.

"My first thought when I saw the news reports of the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf two years ago were, 'Oh my gosh, I wonder if some of the bombs down there are to blame'," recalled Bryant.

That turned out not to be the case, but such World War II finds are not surprising in the oil industry.

Last year, BP shut a major North Sea pipeline for five days to remove a 13-foot unexploded German mine. BP discovered the mine during an inspection, then spent months devising a plan to remove and safely detonate it.

Pentagon

This chart lists some of the munitions dump sites in the Gulf of Mexico, and what is there.

In 2001, BP and Shell found the wreckage of the U-166, a German WWII submarine, 45 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River. 

While the practice of dumping bombs and chemical weapons in the ocean ended 40 years ago, some effects are just now being seen, Terrance Long, founder of the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions, told Reuters. Bryant will be briefing the group's conference, which begins Monday in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

"You can find munitions in basically every ocean around the world, every major sea, lake and river," Long said. "They are a threat to human health and the environment."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Vintage Purple Hearts can fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars on the open market.

The Second World War cost John Henckel his life. The Purple Heart medal he earned for his valiant death comes far cheaper.

For $395, you can buy the award the Army granted posthumously to Henckel, an Army private from Texas, who was killed in action in the Philippines on Jan. 30, 1945.

That’s the price quoted at BayStateMilitaria.com, a combat collectibles site that lists 12 Purple Hearts for sale, ranging from $90 for an unnamed, World War II medal “in nice condition” on up to Henckel’s ribbon.

“A lot of people don’t understand why people collect these. They think it’s a glorification of war. It’s the exact opposite: It’s the celebration of America’s good deeds,” said Scott Kraska, operator of BayStateMilitaria. “It’s memorializing those soldiers who lived and those soldiers who died, celebrating them, learning about them, caring about them through their artifacts – uniforms, diaries, letters and through their medals.”

Following a Supreme Court decision in June that effectively overturned a seven-year-old ban on the buying and selling of Purple Hearts in this country, the oldest U.S. military decorations have bloomed into popular commodities among online souvenir dealers, Internet classified lists, and e-retailers, not to mention at swap meets and vintage stores.

“They can’t keep them on the shelves in an antique shop – on the day they put one out there, it’s gone,” said Capt. Zach Fike, an Army National Guard member based in Burlington, Vt.

But the burgeoning Purple Heart market, in Fike’s view, is nothing more than an American tragedy. He devotes many of his nights and weekends to his passion and to his nonprofit, Purple Hearts Reunited. During the past two years, Fike has used his online detective skills to return seven of the wayward medals – earned by U.S. service members killed or wounded in action – to those soldiers’ families.

For the majority of Purple Heart collectors and dealers, Fike has few kind words.

“It wouldn’t be fair for me to say they’re all bad. But the ones I have encountered, I would consider myself their No. 1 enemy,” Fike said. “They’re making hundreds or thousands of dollars on (each one) these medals. They think it’s cool. It’s a symbol of death. Because of that, it has a lot of market interest and it has a lot of value.”

For Kraska and BayStateMilitaria, based in Massachusetts, Fike has even more scathing review: “He is making a profit off of people who died. I have no respect for that man.”

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The two men have had one phone conversation. It did not go well. Fike tried to convince Kraska to at least look for the medal recipients’ families before selling the Purple Hearts; Kraska tried to sway Fike that he sells medals that the recipients’ families have typically sold at garage sales or just tossed in the trash.

Their personal war – fueled by American wars past, during which more than 1.7 million Purple Hearts have been granted by the military – boiled hotter after the Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act. Signed into law in 2006, the act primarily intended to muzzle people who falsely claimed they had received military medals. As a side consequence, however, the act made it illegal to sell military decorations.

In June, the High Court ruled that the Stolen Valor Act infringed on free speech – even if that speech was fraudulent and uttered by fake war heroes. (On Sept. 13, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a more narrowly focused version of the Stolen Valor Act that will allow criminal prosecutions against individuals who “knowingly” misrepresent their military service records “with the intent to obtain anything of value.”)

Meanwhile, the Purple Heart market remains open for business.

How do those cherished awards typically reach the storerooms of military memorabilia dealers? Medal peddlers often find them at yard sales, flea markets or on sites like Craigslist.

High court strikes down Stolen Valor Act

“They’re not there because somebody pried them out of the hands of an unwilling person,” said Kraska, a military souvenir collector since age 15. He’s now 45. “They’re there because these families have thrown them away or sold them. So these pieces become separated from the family not by accident. They are discarded items.”

The value of a Purple Heart is determined, in part, by whether its recipient was killed in action. In such cases, the military engraves the service member’s name on the back of the medal before giving it to the next of kin. Eventually, if collectors obtain those medals, that scant amount of information allows dealers to research the soldier’s personal history and find out when and how he died.

“These hearts have more of a historical context,” and thus fetch more in sales, Kraska said. “If a Purple Heart is out of its element (and blank on the back), you have no idea who it belonged to; it really has no historical significance and consequently does not have a lot of monetary value.”

In today’s military collectibles market, Purple Hearts doled out during World War II tend to be worth $300 to $400, Kraska said. The prices are fueled by America’s continuing infatuation with “the Greatest Generation” and its seminal conflict, spurred further by popular recent films like “Saving Private Ryan” and by TV miniseries like “Band of Brothers.”

Price points are also driven upward if medals are contained in their original shipping boxes and if they are accompanied by the soldier’s letters home or by government correspondences about the service member’s passing.

“When you see these things, you’re looking into the window of what it was like to be on the other end of the homecoming of World War II, away from the tickertape parades,” Kraska said. “I’ll sometimes have not only the Purple Heart but the original telegram sent to the (deceased’s) mother. I’ve had crumbled telegrams because somebody was in such anguish after receiving that news.”

Courtesy of Zach Fike

Army National Guard Capt. Zach Fike bought Ralph Bingham's 93-year-old Purple Heart on Craigslist then returned it to Bingham's family last Saturday. Fike stands with Barbara MacNevin, the daughter of Private Bingham. The photo was taken at the Bourne, Mass. National Cemetery on Sept. 15. MacNevin holds the flag that was flown over the U.S. Capital in honor of her father. Atop the folded flag is Bingham's Purple Heart.

While Kraska emphasized that he treats his for-sale medals with love, veterans like John Bircher are equally anguished when money is generated – years later – by the blood shed by an American Marine, infantryman, sailor or flier.

“We hate to see these things out there for sale. Anytime I see one at a flea market or a pawn shop, I buy it,” said Bircher, spokesman for the Military Order of the Purple Heart. The group, based in Sprinfield, Va., was formed in 1932 “for the protection and mutual interest of all who have received the decoration.” It is composed exclusively of Purple Heart recipients. Bircher earned his when he took shrapnel in the leg in Vietnam.

Fike, too, owns a Purple Heart. He was wounded Sept. 11, 2010 in Afghanistan when an enemy rocket landed near his bunk and sent a burning chunk of shrapnel into his lower back.

But his fervor to return Purple Hearts to the families of the recipients was kindled, he said, when his own mother gave him another man’s Purple Heart as a Christmas gift shortly before Fike was deployed to Afghanistan. She had purchased the award for $100 at an antique shop. Fike began a quest to find the identity of that soldier and eventually discovered his name, Corrado Piccoli, his fate – killed in France in 1943 – and then tracked down his kin and returned the heirloom.  

He insists that most Purple Hearts that wind up in thrift shops or in online auctions were not purposely surrendered by families nor meant to be sold but were often lost or misplaced, only to be discovered years later by people who had no connection to the medals yet who saw dollar signs. 

“I know I’m out numbered on this - there's hundreds of collectors selling them and buying them compared to one guy who’s on this crusade,” Fike said.

“But if I can just reach one or two of these dealers and convince them to at least try to reunite the medals with the families of the recipients, well, then I’ve done some justice.”

In Chicago, two teens and a man are in police custody after they allegedly jumped an 87-year-old World War II veteran and robbed him of his wallet, knocking out the man's hearing aid and busting his dentures in the process.

Two delivery men who witnessed the attack secretly followed the alleged attackers and guided police to them.

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The trio, ages 15, 17 and 20, were arrested not far from where Porter Cross was kicked and robbed at West 71st Street and South Artesian Avenue.

"I'm outraged. I'm saddened. My heart hurts," Cross' daughter, Cynthia Steward-Jones, said Tuesday. "He served his country and worked for the post office for 36 years. Who could do something like this to an old person? Or anybody?"

Charged in the attack were Rashon Williams, 20, of Calumet City, Ill., and Michael Protho, 17, of Hazel Crest, Ill. Both were charged with robbery of a senior citizen. Protho was also charged with reckless conduct for trying to run into traffic in order to escape arrest, authorities said.

The 15-year-old, also charged with felony robbery, will be handled by juvenile authorities. Bond was set at $500,000 each for Williams and Protho.

"I got nothing to say to them," said Cross. "I feel sorry for them, but I want to know why would they do something like this to an old man."

Cross was treated at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn for several bruises and lacerations across his face.

Marta Omarr, who lives on the property where the beating took place, called the attack disgusting.

"I just thought it was awful for him to be 87 years old, birthday coming up Thursday, and for him to just be on a nice day, in broad daylight, to be walking to the store and to be attacked by these three animals," she added. "It's ridiculous."

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