![\"Zachariah](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Zachariah-Fike-223x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nOur buddy, Captain Zachariah Fike, a Vermont National Guardsman and founder\/CEO of Purple Hearts Reunited<\/a> has been named Soldier of the Year by Army Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n The prior-enlisted infantry officer is the officer strength manager for the Vermont National Guard\u2019s recruiting and retention battalion. He commands the company responsible for Officer Candidate School in the state\u2019s Regional Training Institute. The husband and father of two young children also is enrolled in the information operations course as part of his Intermediate Level Education.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t sleep,\u201d Fike said. \u201cThis is probably the busiest I\u2019ve been in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n Fike, a Purple Heart recipient who has deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, started down this road after his 2006 tour in Iraq.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I can’t even begin to tell you how tireless he is in that mission of his. I’m proud to count him among my real friends and you should, too.<\/p>\n From a local Vermont journalist<\/a>;<\/p>\n Fike started on this path on Christmas 2009 when his mother, herself a former army drill sergeant, gave him a Purple Heart as a gift; she’d purchased it in an antique shop for $100.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a military collector,” Fike said in a 2014 interview, “but the Purple Heart is different, something that shouldn’t be bought and sold on the open market. It didn\u2019t feel right to me to own it.\u201d<\/p>\n After having returned from his own military deployment in Afghanistan in December 2010, Fike set out to reunite the gifted Purple Heart with its rightful owner. When he found himself receiving other Purple Hearts in the mail, he launched the nonprofit. Working entirely in his free time, mostly nights and on weekends, he has since reunited nearly 300 medals with their rightful owners or the owners’ family members.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n