By Mike Hazlip–
Norca Army Navy Surplus, located at 7512 Auburn Blvd., occasionally brings in customers who are looking to part with military uniforms that date back decades.
The owner, Jeff Cooper, says he is not looking for donations from the community, but he does keep an eye out for anything historical. A small collection of uniforms that are not for sale are kept in a space he plans to remodel into a display case.
One of the uniforms was a donation from an elderly woman in Lincoln with a note of authenticity that said the uniform belonged to the woman’s late husband who served in the Navy. The note said he served on the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier commissioned at the close of WWII.
Another woman gave Cooper a wool uniform from the 10th Mountain Division, which Cooper later learned from a historian played an instrumental role in Northern Italy towards the close of WWII.
“I hated history when I was growing up, it was so boring,” Cooper says with a sense of irony. “But now I see the value of history, and I see the value of history as it pertains to our country.”
The business owner says he now has a passion to preserve history and keep it alive for future generations. A customer Cooper only knows as Ed was part of the D-day landing in 1944. A newspaper report shows Ed also made two other landings prior to the Normandy invasion.
“What this has made me realize, how much history is right here that we don’t even know about. How many of our veterans that have done amazing things.”
One of those veterans is Cooper’s father, who served in Vietnam. After his father’s passing 20 years ago, Cooper has been piecing together history of his dad’s service — slowly filling in the blanks missing from the stories he heard growing up. An old army jacket belonging to Cooper’s father, is among the items being saved at the shop.
“When you hear the stories from your dad, you think everybody did that kind of thing,” he says. “It wasn’t until I got older, maybe even when I opened this place twenty years ago, I started really catching on that there’s a lot more to this than any of us know.”
Related: Owner of Citrus Heights military shop searches for clues of father’s wartime service
Over the years, Cooper says many veterans have shown up in the store looking to replace lost or stolen items. One of those was a man who was looking for campaign ribbons. While Cooper said he wasn’t able to replace all of the ribbons and insignia, he gave the man a few items.
He said he same man returned two years later and had restored his collection, and also had since acquired a vehicle and a job. Cooper said the man admitted to him that he was contemplating suicide at their first meeting.
“Whatever it was, it was enough that it gave him that much hope,” Cooper said.
Looking forward, Cooper says he’s building an exhibit for some of the historical artifacts and uniforms he has collected over the years. He says he plans to start documenting the names of the veterans who wore those uniforms to preserve their history.
Once the display is finished, Cooper hopes to host school field trips to his store.
