UA returns dog tags to Vietnam veterans
2,300 war IDs recovered and seeking owners
The University of Arizona’s veterans office is beginning to reconnect Vietnam War veterans with pieces of their past through the return of thousands of recovered dog tags.
In the past month, two veterans, one in Wisconsin and the other in California, have become the first to receive their dog tags from the university after losing them during service more than 40 years ago.
“These dog tags are exceptional relics that have been recovered in Vietnam,” said Duan Copeland, a veteran who is a UA student and graduate assistant in the university’s Veterans Education and Transition Services office. “They are a token of their experiences and it belongs to them. We want to return them.”
The office inherited 2,300 dog tags through the defunct Tours of Peace Vietnam Veterans group last summer and has continued to try to contact veterans in the hopes of returning the IDs.
The dog tags were recovered through Tours of Peace, a non-profit organization that provided services to Vietnam veterans and their families in addition to hosting humanitarian trips to Southeast Asia.
Tours of Peace authenticated the tags through the use of military documents, database data, personal identification documents and information from official memorials.
The non-profit sent mailed letters to reconnect the items with veterans before 2000, but made no later efforts.
The UA’s Veterans Education and Transition Services office is attempting to find the current whereabouts of those whose names are engraved on the dog tags, or their family members, and contact them.
The university hosts a list of the names on its website.
‘A solemn event’
The office received its first two matches in April.
“It was an awesome culmination of a year’s work. it was very exciting to return them,” Copeland said. “But it’s also a solemn event. We wanted to be cognizant of the emotions that go into this, as Vietnam veterans were not well-received when they returned home. For some, they may still feel some of the hatred people gave them when they returned.”
The first response was from Thomas Lee Rhyner, a U.S. Air Force Vietnam veteran who was stationed at Da Nang Air Base in 1970 and 1971. Rhyner emailed Copeland on April 18 and told him he didn’t realize he’d left his dog tag there until he received notice from the university.
Rhyner, also retired from the Army, told the university he was “very grateful to be reunited with my dog tag, as it brings back a lot of memories.”
Since Rhyner’s reunion, a Walnut Creek, Calif., Marine Corps veteran has been identified by his son as matching a name on the list.
“Those are just two of the 2,300 we’d like to return,” Copeland said.
“Being handed these dog tags is a piece of history, and I want to make sure we get all of them out to these veterans and their families.”