Former Lieutenant Colonel Taft M. Joseph thought his Purple Heart was lost forever.

Wounded while fighting in Vietnam, at some unfortunate point during the 1970s the award went missing from his possessions — and he hadn’t seen it since.

Until it was, at long last, reunited with the veteran after a news correspondent bought it at an army surplus store in Colorado Springs, Colorado and returned it to the Overland Park, Kansas resident.

Watch the video to see a reunion that was nearly five decades in the making.