This piece is an intimate look into a family, especially the son-in-law Dereyk Patterson, dealing with the war trophy of a veteran. It is a story not often heard, with Veterans day arriving and the current war in Iraq raging, we must wonder if this practice is being repeated with the bones of dead Iraqis, or vice-versa. Are the bones of dead American soldiers sitting in a box in some Vietnamese village, or an Iraqi town? It is an engaging piece that sheds light on a topic rarely discussed.

This is an intriguing and somewhat gruesome tale that reverberates now amid the ravages of war now. The practice of taking the bones of war enemies goes back to theft of Native American dead residing in modern day museums. But Deryk Patterson attempts to right the wrong of his father who stole the bones of a Viet Cong soldier. His effort leads him to question and makes some sort of sense about the reasons behind his father's actions. Can we ever understand the actions of a soldier in a war and the most horrific of violence? Was his father a hero? If so how could he take the remains of a human being as a souvenir of war? Producer Karen Brown does solid work here raising questions and offers several perspectives. A timely piece with the election and the discussion of "war heros" and current war we're in right now. I wonder how many "enemy" bones are out there sitting in American homes from wars past. There is a host intro that would need to edited out but this piece would work well on local news magazines.