WWII vet's dog tags returned after 66 years

By msnbc.com news services

A Marine Corps vet who fought in World War II received?an unexpected gift at his retirement home this weekend:?a military identification tag he had lost?more than six decades?ago.

Richard Urie lost the dog tag when he was stationed on the island of Saipan in 1945, reported The Boston Globe?on Wednesday.?A Saipan?resident had?found the tag in 1981 in a yam field, reported The Globe, but it was only a few months ago that ?Urie, an Internet-savvy 86-year-old, found out?via his Facebook account that?a piece of his military history had been uncovered.?????

?Urie was at home in his Peabody, Mass. senior living?community with his four daughters, two sons-in-law, and a friend on Sunday?when an assistant U.S. attorney came to deliver the tag, reported The Saipan Tribune.

"This is the most amazing thing to happen to me. When you reach an age of 86, you don't expect any surprises," Urie told the Saipan?Tribune via email.?"This is a very significant event in my life. It brings back many memories."

?Saipan is the biggest of the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific. Urie told media outlets?he didn't remember losing his tag, but estimated it was probably about seven months before he was discharged in 1946.

U.S. soldiers in the field wear two identification tags at all times. If they are killed, one tag is collected, and the the other stays with the body. Urie held onto his remaining tag, but had no idea that a man named Mike Villagomez, who grew up on Saipan, had found the other tag while clearing rocks in his family's dagu?- or white yam - farm when he was 13 years old in 1981, reported The Saipan Tribune.

War artifacts
As a youth, Villagomez frequently found war artifacts,?such as grenades and canteens,?he told the paper. Once he even found human remains.

"I would imagine what had happened in that particular place I was exploring," the now 43-year-old gym teacher said.

Villagomez had forgotten about Urie's dog tag until years later when his wife, Erlinda,?came across it in a pencil case, reported The Saipan Tribune. Erlinda Villagomez?works at the US Attorney's Office in Saipan and in November, she mentioned?the dog tag to special investigator deputy marshal Randy Kruid?after noticing he had dog tags of his own framed in his office, said The Saipan Tribune.

Kruid?found Urie after a quick Internet search.

Urie joined the Marine Corps in 1943 at 19, and became a PFC radio operator stationed in Saipan, said The Globe. Kruid wasn't sure if he would still be alive.

"I thought I was talking to a family member," Kruid told the Saipan Tribune of corresponding via email with the 86-year-old war vet. "It was an amazing experience."

Urie's wife died nearly three years ago, but finding the dog tag has brought back memories that he looks forward to sharing with his seven grandchildren, he told The Globe.

"It's an amazing story, he said. "Certainly, being 86 years old, I can't even comprehend that this is happening."

For more on this story:

Visit The Boston Globe
Visit The Saipan Tribune

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/11/10114344-wwii-vets-dog-tags-returned-after-66-years

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