87 y.o. veteran wins knife hand-to-hand combat to save his medals.

[medals73]

True, the GPW ended some 67 years ago and, assuming the veteran was 20 at the time, . . . well, you do the sums. And those who came out of the war with significant combat awards would, arguably, have been older. So they (1) must be getting pretty thin on the ground and (2) may have fallen victim since the end of the USSR to a desire to "augment" a slim and less impressive group of medals.