When eight-year-old Myles Eckert found $20 in a Cracker Barrel parking lot, he didn’t spend it on a video game – he gave it to a soldier to thank him for his service.Myles was just five-weeks-old when his father, Army Sgt. Andy Eckert was killed in Iraq.

In honor of his dad’s memory, the Ohio boy wrapped the money in a touching handwritten note and handed it to Lt. Col. Frank Dailey who was eating lunch at the restaurant:

‘Dear Soldier – my dad was a soldier. He’s in heaven now. I found this 20 dollars in the parking lot when we got here. We like to pay it forward in my family. It’s your lucky day! Thank you for your service. Myles Eckert, a gold star kid.’

CBS News reported the young boy was excited when he found the cash on February 7 and began planning what he could spend it on.

‘I kind of wanted to get a video game, but then I decided not to,’ Myles said.

He changed his mind when he saw the officer in uniform, ‘because he was a soldier, and soldiers remind me of my dad.’

For Dailey, who was stationed at the Ohio Air National Guard base near Toledo, the honor was overwhelming.

‘It’s incredible being recognized in such a manner,’ he said. ‘I look at it (the note) every day.’

Dailey said the gift, which he gave away, provided him with ‘a lifetime direction, for sure.’

He told CBS News he hopes the little green Post-It will inspire other people across America to give as generously as Myles.

While little Myles was too young to remember his dad, he has learned a lot about him from stories, pictures and dog tags.

‘I imagine him as a really nice person and somebody that would be really fun,’ Myles said.

The boy’s mom, Tiffany Eckert, said after her son gave away the money he found, he wanted to visit his dad’s grave site.

‘He wanted to go see his dad,’ she said. ‘And he wanted to go by himself that day.’

Eckert captured the moving moment the little boy hugged his dad’s gravestone, showing that the soldier’s legacy lives on in the good deeds of his kindhearted son.