Vet finds Vietnam-era dog tag of Marine
The Associated Press
Posted : Monday May 11, 2009 6:41:33 EDT

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — A Marine who lost his dog tag in Vietnam more than 40 years ago has been reunited with his military ID tag, thanks to the persistent efforts of a stranger in Minnesota.

Mike Hiebing, 68, lost the tag during a 13-month tour of duty in 1965-66. He didn’t realize it was missing until he returned to the U.S. in April 1966.

The Town of Wilson man wasn’t sure he’d ever see it again. But a few weeks ago his wife received a phone call from Chuck Peterson, an Army veteran from Lake Bronson, Minn. Peterson said he had the dog tag and wanted to send it back.

The missing tag — slightly discolored but otherwise no worse for wear — arrived shortly in a manila envelope.

“It means a lot,” Mike Hiebing said. “It brings tears to my eyes.”

Added his wife, Dianne Hiebing: “We were really astounded to get it.”

Peterson had stumbled across the dog tag, and hundreds of similar ones, while on a recent business trip to Hanoi. A street vendor was wearing a necklace made from a Vietnam-era dog tag, a form of jewelry Peterson didn’t appreciate.

“I didn’t necessarily think that needed to be used as a fashion statement,” Peterson told The Sheboygan Press.

So he offered to buy the tag for $1, planning to send it to its rightful owner. He also asked where he could buy more, and eventually ended up with about 270.

Since March he sent out 32 dog tags to veterans or their surviving spouses. Hiebing was No. 22 on his list.

While he was grateful to recover a link to the past, Hiebing said the dog tag also brought back other emotionally charged memories — serving in combat, losing comrades, feeling lucky to have survived.

“You do get the guilt complex,” Hiebing said. “You made it home and the other guys didn’t.”

Peterson said he was cautious about the idea of bringing veterans face to face with memories they may have locked away for decades. Having served several years in the Army himself in the 1970s, he decided to take that chance.

“I was leery of opening old wounds,” Peterson said, but he realized “it really takes a veteran to help a veteran heal.”

When Peterson first brought the dog tags home, they were confiscated by customs agents in Seattle. But for some reason the tags were later mailed to his home.

After conferring with Department of Defense officials who said they didn’t want the tags, Peterson took it upon himself to find the owners through Internet searches.

Hiebing, who still sports a Marine haircut, knows that was a lot of effort on Peterson’s part, but he’s glad Peterson remained persistent.

“If he’s doing that for 200-and-some people, and 200-and-some people get the same emotions I do about it, it’s pretty good,” he said.

That’s exactly what keeps Peterson going. The veterans he tracks down are thrilled to hear their tags have been recovered, and many of the conversations quickly take an emotional turn, he said.

“Buckets of tears, buckets of laughter,” Peterson said. “The guys will sit there and talk and talk and talk. And they’ll say, ’Oops, I haven’t talked this much about Vietnam in years.’ And it’s just incredibly rewarding.”

Ellie