Veteran gets ID tag back 34 years later

BLACKFOOT, Idaho – Ernest Lowe was on guard duty in Vietnam when a round from a Viet Cong sniper’s grenade launcher took out his eye before exploding.

He was hit by 10 pieces of shrapnel, with one piece striking one of his dog tags, possibly protecting him from a fatal wound.

Lowe lost the dog tag when he was wounded on Oct. 21, 1970, but now he has it back.

“It may have saved my life,” said Lowe, 52, of Blackfoot. “That’s what kind of attachment it is.”

The tag ended up in a store in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon. Vietnamese peddlers sell the tags to tourists for a few dollars.

But the man who bought Lowe’s dog tag, along with about 5,700 others, was not looking for a souvenir.

“We just believe they don’t belong over there,” said Bob McMahon, a veteran from Hancock, N.H.

“They don’t belong anywhere else. You don’t leave your men behind, and these tags represent those men and women who were over there.”

Dog tags provide a soldier’s name, Social Security number and blood type.

McMahon began buying dog tags in 2000, when he made a trip to Ho Chi Minh City. He later founded Cana Mission, an organization devoted to returning dog tags to veterans and their families.

“It was a kick in the gut, so I went back,” McMahon said. “We’ve been trying to acquire what we can since then.”

McMahon and his wife, Ann, make yearly trips to buy the dog tags. With the names, they search the Internet for veterans and contact them, using the Social Security numbers to confirm identities.

From there, the reactions vary, he said, but are always tempered by gratefulness.

“We get everything from weeping to excitement and thankfulness and some skepticism until they get it in the mail,” Bob McMahon said. “All this comes out of nowhere.”

When Lowe got the dog tag in the mail, he saw a bent, faded plate that took a round of shrapnel for him.

“It looks like it’s been through war,” he said.