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thedrifter
04-05-06, 08:21 AM
Couple returning lost dogtags to 'Nam vets
By PAT KINNEY, Courier Business Editor

WATERLOO --- A Waterloo-born Chicago-area businessman and his wife have spent the last four years returning U.S. military dogtags they bought from a street vendor in Vietnam to their original owners or their families.

V.R. "Swede" Roskam, 76, a sales and marketing executive for Oil-Dri Corp. of Chicago, said he and his wife, Martha, have been working on the project since 2001.

That's when his wife found the 37 dogtags at a streetside shop in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. She had accompanied her husband on a business trip there.

"She was going down the street and saw some coins and so forth in this one shop. On top of the coins were some dogtags. She knew what they were because her dad and two brothers had been in World War II and I had been in Korea," said Roskam, a 1947 graduate of West High School.

"She put them down and came to the hotel that night and told me about them. I was really incensed they were on a street for sale," said Roskam, who served as a company commander in the U.S. Army's 25th Division in the Korean War. "I encouraged her to go back and buy them.

"She said, 'Swede, I don't know if I can find them or not,' " among all the vendors in the sprawling city, Roskam related. "I said, 'You've got a couple of days. You'll find them.' ... I said, 'I don't care if you have to pay $500, get them. Don't leave them there."

She bought them for $20. After returning home, the Roskams enlisted the help of their son, Peter, an Illinois state senator, who, with the help of a brigadier general in the Illinois National Guard, made contact with a national military records center in St. Louis. From there, the Roskams began matching dog tag serial numbers with the current or last known addresses of their owners according to military records. They also received help from the U.S. Veterans Administration.

So far, they've been able to return 20 of the 37 dogtags to the soldiers or Marines who wore them in Vietnam, or their families. Four of the troops had been killed in Vietnam. That was the case with the first tag they returned, in 2002, to the mother of Alfred Moreno Jr. of Phoenix. He was killed by a land mine while on patrol in Vietnam in 1969.

"Each story was different," Roskam said. One soldier, Lamar Jackson of Augusta Ga., "had served eight months on the line without a scratch. He was in reserve, taking a shower and the Communists threw mortars (shells) in and hit him in the shower. He got what we would call a 'million dollar wound' " and was shipped home -- without his tags, which he had removed during his shower.

"One guy lost his coming down the rope off a helicopter," going into combat as a replacement, Roskam said.

"There're all different stories," Roskam said. "Its been a marvelous experience. We've met people that we wouldn't meet in a hundred months of Sundays."

The Roskams like to make a special occasion out of returning the tags. Frequently, Roskam said, it's quite emotional, particularly for families who have lost their love ones in Vietnam or after the war. Their project has been featured on The Today Show and local media in communities where tags were returned.

Individuals interested in the Roskams' project may visit the Internet site www.roskamdogtag.com for more information, including individuals they're still trying to find to return tags to.

Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or Pat.Kinney@wcfcourier.com.

Ellie