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Memorial Day 2004 My Missing Dog Tag Is Found On June 22, 1966, I was issued two metal identification tags, referred to by GIs as dog tags. The tag is rather small, one inch wide and two inches long. The information on mine was: FOSTER R. D. 2271549 A (blood type) USMC M (medium gas mask size) BAPTIST From that day on, those dog tags were part of me, as with every other serviceman. In Vietnam we wore one on a chain around our necks and one laced within the strings of a jungle boot. The theory was if you got your head blown off, you could still be identified, and vice versa. When I came home in May of 1969 and returned to civilian life, I put all my military stuff away. Years later I was going through it and found one of the dog tags and started wearing it around my neck again. The chances of getting my head blown off were a lot less by that time. The other tag wasn’t with the stuff and I couldn’t remember what had happened to it. On Memorial Day 2004, my wife and I had been visiting old friends, Bill Bryan, Thomas Holdbrooks, and Gilbert Garza. When we got home there was a call in my telephone messages form an old Marine Corps buddy from boot camp and Okinawa, Larry ‘Nick’ Nickelson who lives near Tyler, Texas: "R. D. It’s Nick. Call me." I called and he told me he had read an article in the newspaper about a girl, Stacey Hansen, who was a firefighter in California who had visited Vietnam recently. While there she had discovered many American GI’s dog tags for sale in small curio shops around the country. She ended up buying everyone she found. When she got home she started a website where she listed all the names of those guys. Nick went to the site and started looking through them to see if he recognized anyone. He did. It was Foster, R. D. I immediately went to the site and saw my name there. It couldn’t be me, I thought. It must be somebody else with the same name. Things like this happen to other people you read about in the paper. I e-mailed the site and was asked for the information that was on the dog tag. I, being the skeptical sort, reported everything as it was except for one thing. I put Protestant instead of Baptist. The next day a return e-mail arrived in which she had listed everything including Baptist, with a phone number to call as soon as possible. I called right away and spoke with Stacy. She was as excited as I was and told me she was holding my dog tag in her hand. She said she had found it in a little shop near Chu Lai, about sixty miles south of Da Nang. Just to hear her mention those names brought back a flood of memories and emotions. I got a little choked up, but managed to thank her from the bottom of my heart. I asked if I could send any money to help cover her expenses, but she said no way. She felt as if returning the missing dog tags was her way of doing something for the veterans who have served her country. On June 10, exactly thirty-five years and one month after I had returned, my long missing dog tag arrived in the mail. I opened the envelope and pulled out the enclosed card which had a photograph Stacey had taken on the Perfume River during her trip to Vietnam. The dog tag was wrapped in white tissue, but before I unwrapped it I read the note she had written: Mr. Foster, I am happy to have found you! Thank God you’re still around. Thank you for sharing a little about yourself with me. But mostly thank you so much for your service in Vietnam. I know it’s because of men like yourself who have the guts to go to war, that I enjoy the freedoms that I do. So thank you. Here is my website where you can see your name, www.vietnamdogtags.com. May God bless you and grant you "Peace." Take care. Sincerely, Stacey I unwrapped the tissue and held the small piece of metal in my hand. It was my dog tag all right, the one issued in 1966. It was tarnished and still had a trace of that ever so familiar red dust around the edges. It had a slight crease across it that looked like it had been bent and someone had straightened it out. I was wishing it could talk and tell me where it had been for all those years. What stories it could tell. I wondered how many times someone had held it in their hand and wondered who Foster, R. D. was and if he had lived or died. I guess I will never know, but then again, miracles do happen. Thank you Stacey, you are a great American. "Blood On The Sand" (From a song by Ronnie D. Foster) Here’s to America, Red, white and blue. I’ll stand beside you, In what we have to do. There comes a time, When you’ve got to take a stand, The price of freedom is, Blood on the sand. Here’s to the soldiers, God bless you. You’ve got the courage, To do what you do. There comes a time, When you’ve got to make a stand, The price of freedom is, Blood on the sand. War protesters, God bless you too. You’ve got the freedom, To do what you do. Just remember, Your right to take a stand, It was paid for with, Blood on the sand. It ain’t free, Being free, It don’t come free, You’ve got to fight for the right, To be free, It ain’t free, It don’t come free. |
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| JC SEXTON |
