POWs Purple Heart Found In Beach Walmart Parking Lot

The News Herald - Panama City, FL, USA

February 27, 2009 12:02:00 AM
By JONAS HOGG / News Herald Writer

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Kenneth E. Ravitz left his Dade home in the early 1950s for the Korean War.


He never returned.

On official records he is listed as Prisoner of War/Missing in Action. But a Purple Heart bearing his name has surfaced in an unlikely place: the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter in Panama City Beach.

Sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday, someone anonymously delivered the battered and torn ribbon to Ray Carroll's office in Bay County Veterans' Services. No one is quite sure who Ravitz is, if he has family in this area or how the legacy of his service was found so ignobly.


"It's pretty well destroyed," Carroll said. "It looks like it may have been run over or something, but there's a possibility that if we can identify who the family member is, we may can even get them a replacement Purple Heart for that."

There are no Ravitz families listed in the Panama City city directory, and the name was not familiar to area veterans organizations. There is a Kenneth E. Ravitz on record with the state Veterans Administration, Carroll said, but no address of record or contact information is given.

The Defense Prisoner or War / Missing Person Web site has limited information about Ravitz. He was a private first class with F Company, 2/38 regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. His home of record is given as Dade, but it is not clear whether that implies Dade City, north of Tampa, or Dade County.

The 2nd Infantry Division was at the heart of the offensives and counter-offensives waged between United Nations forces and the Chinese, and the POW Web site lists a "date of incident" as April 3, 1951. Ravitz's official date of death is given as Dec. 31, 1953, the blanket date given for unreturned prisoners of war who were presumed dead.


Jim Doescher, commander of the Panama City chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, said someone contacted him several months back wondering if a Kenneth Ravitz was a member of the organization.

Service members wounded in the line of duty and meeting certain criteria are eligible to receive the Purple Heart. Civilians were eligible to receive the ribbon until 1997, at which point the Purple Heart was made military specific and civilians now can receive the Defense of Freedom Medal.

Want to help?

If you know something about Kenneth E. Ravitz or his Purple Heart, please call Bay County Veterans Services at 784-4044.