Old man passed recently, and in his garage was a trunk full of his citations (mostly Vietnam).  There are a lot of them, all in their little cloth-covered cardboard folders, for all those medals (many with multiple clusters).

Not sure what the hell to do with them... part of me says keep them forever, part of me thinks that my old man would think that was the stupidest thing ever.

What say you?

(Note that this post was intentionally not placed in GD)

First, sorry for your loss.

They are yours now, what do you want to do with them?  

Put them in a shadow box and hang on the wall?

Keep them. Get a shadow box and get his medals mounted in them in order.  A picture of dad would be cool to if you have one of him in uniform.

May not mean much to you.  May well be important to a grandchild of his.

What do I want to do with them?

The actual medals are easy... I figure I'll mount the medal board with his command wings and nametag (as they were worn) on a board and frame it, surrounded with his "patch board".

My question is what to do with the actual letters that came with them. There are a whole lot of them, and I'm not sure what to do with them...  it is literally a wooden trunk filled with little cardboard booklets...

The other thing I need is a nice flag holder...

You could do what I did and put the letters in plastic sleeves and into a 3 ring binder. I kept one or two of the folders in case I ever want to display a particular award, which is extremely unlikely.

now that is a possibility....

Scan the citations so you will always have them. You could place the citations in the shadowbox.  If he has valor awards you could have the award and citation framed together.

Do this..

I did with my fathers flag and awards..



This is just a generic pic.

Keep them.

I was just promoted and was pinned with my grandfathers rank.  It was pretty fucking awesome.  There were more comments about his rank than congratulations to me.

When I graduated Airborne school, I had my dads sterling silver wings.  The Sergeant Airborne knew what they were (heavy compared to the cheap shit they issue you)

If you have any children or nephews/nieces etc.  It would be cool for them to get some of his stuff.

A guy I know recently had his graduation Ranger Tab (it was also his fathers) epoxied.  I asked what he would do when his son graduated Ranger school and he gave me the biggest "OH SHIT" look I've ever seen.



ETA, place the citations behind the shadow box.  I don't remember who and google is failing me but someone makes one with a slot in the back for the actual citations.

Exactly. Put them in the box as well, along with his DD214. Great way to keep his legacy alive in the family if anyone ever wants to know what a particular ribbon was for.

I have one of these, but it's all my stuff. It's done commonly in the modern Army. Called an "I love me" binder. Keeps everything safe for when the Army loses something and you have to provide a new copy. My kids have gotten a kick out of reading newspaper articles about certain operations I was involved with in Iraq, and the front page of the Baghdad newspaper from the morning Saddam was hung.



 

Keep them might have a child/ grandchild who serves one day and the might have the privilege to use your father's ribbons! Us vets look at them as junk when we get older but to the younger brothers/sisters look at them as pure gold!

I know I did when I got my Uncle's combat action ribbon it's the only one I have that I care about maybe one day one my my kin will say the same about mine!