East Tennessee veteran has medals and awards stolen from storage unit [Video]

SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – For 15 years, Don Ledford proudly served in the Navy, where he worked in engineering on ships.

During his time in the Navy, he served overseas in conflicts in Libya, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran and received several medals and awards from the military.

Some of those recognitions included combat action ribbons, Navy achievement medals, sea service ribbons, unit commendations and expeditionary medals.

Last week, Ledford said he got a call from his family that all of the awards, medals and documentation of his time in the Navy were stolen after a storage unit they were in had been broken into.

“They took a part of me, a personal part of me, and I don’t know if we can put words on that. I don’t know if a veteran can tell you what it means to him when all that’s gone,” said Ledford.

His daughter, Shawna Proffitt, …