VET’S BRACELET BINDS STRANGERS
Piece returned to family
Mailing a bracelet to the home of the Kolstad family in Minnesota from Massachusetts means the world to a 52-year-old man looking to honor the wish of his deceased mother.
Thomas Hurley of Rockland knew he had to return the bracelet bearing the name Navy Cdr. Thomas Kolstad that was given to him when he was a kid.
He remembers sitting in Holy Family Church as a young child when his mother bought the bracelet. It was inscribed with the name of the deceased Vietnam Navy pilot, who was listed as missing for 10 years before it was confirmed he had been killed Oct. 22, 1966, at the age of 31.
“She took it back for safekeeping and told me that when I find it again and when she passed to do my homework and bring it back to the family,” Hurley said. “So what I was trying to do was to fulfill my promise to my mother.”
Kolstad flew reconnaissance missions for the Navy over Vietnam. After his body was recovered, he was buried in Parkville, Minn., not too far from where he grew up, according to his younger brother Doug.
“His was actually one of the first bodies from there that were sent back,” Hurley said. “There are six boys in the family. He’s the only one that was actively over in Vietnam.”
Hurley’s search for Doug Kolstad and his wife, Sue, began once he found the bracelet after his mother died almost two years ago.
Learning about Cdr. Thomas Kolstad in the process made Hurley feel connected to the pilot and family that he had never met.
“I felt as connected to him as if I knew him personally,” Hurley said. “I got to know his family history, where he went to school and everything.”
Web searches and numerous phone calls to town offices in Britt, Minn., led him nowhere, so Hurley decided to contact the police in Minnesota.
“I got a lot of help from the state police,” he said.
Hurley was able to find three phone numbers listed for Kolstads in Britt. The first two calls were unsuccessful, but the third call was the deceased man’s sister-in-law Sue.
The next morning Doug Kolstad called Hurley to thank him for what he was doing.
“My brother is my hero,” Kolstad said. “I think he would have been close to 80 years old right now and I just think of all the stuff that he was missing and didn’t have a chance to do.”
Kolstad said the bracelet will be given to his nephew, Thomas Kolstad’s namesake, on Christmas Day.
Doug Kolstad said he is grateful for the kindness of a stranger.
“It’s nice to know that people are concerned or that they just want to give those things back to the family,” he said. “I think that’s a really nice gesture.”