Did They Really Need The Stuff More Than His Wife?

I just watched a news report about SenAirman Bradley R Smith who was killed in Afghanistan January 3, 2010; he was 24 years old. The news story didn't focus on his death but on how his widow was robbed. She and her mother-in-law were in Colorado Springs for a memorial service. They stopped for lunch and someone broke into their rental car and stole many of his personal items including ior the dog tags he was wearing when he was killed, his laptop, and his watch.

Hopefully, with the news coverage it has received, some (all?) of these items can be found and returned to his widow, Tiffany. I think the saddest part of all is that not only did his 3 month old baby, Chloe Lynn, lose the father she never got to meet but she also lost tangible items that he owned. A friend of mine had her purse stolen a few years ago, inside her purse was her dad's dog tags. He didn't die in the line of duty, he was struck by a drunk driver that drug him under his car for several feet. She sometimes liked to wear the dog tags because it made him feel closer to her. Who knows where those tags ended up. Were they pawned for drugs, traded, kept as a souvenir,discarded in the trash? I hope that where ever these two sets of memories ended up someone in the future feels compelled to track down their origins and the children of the men who served their country get them back.

I don't understand why people feel like they have the right to take things that were never theirs and break the hearts and spirits of people who rightfully own them. It's like they have some sort of bizarre sense of entitlement.