Lost and found: Dog tags return home
It’s a single moment in time that Mike Cini never will be able to forget: 9:15 a.m., Aug. 24, 1971.
He was in his second year serving in Vietnam, in the town of Hoi An, located halfway down the country’s eastern coast. The squad he oversaw was called on to meet a helicopter dropping off mail and supplies.
Cini and six men carefully made their way to the helicopter and retraced their steps on the way back.
“And that’s when I stepped on it,” Cini said.
It was a land mine that blew off Cini’s left leg. He was helicoptered out of the area, six months shy of completing his tour of duty. He spent roughly a year in and out of hospitals around the world before returning to the Quad-Cities and his fiancée, Ann.
Cini said he thinks about the incident almost every time he stands up or walks with a slight limp. But he considers himself fortunate to have come home alive.
“There are worse things, I guess,” Cini said of the incident.
Nevertheless, one thing that hardly entered his mind over the past 35 years was his dog tags or military identification. His first set, which he wore on a long chain around his neck, fell off somewhere during his initial month on duty. And the second remained attached to his right boot, which was left in the field after the land mine explosion.
“I hadn’t even given them any thought,” he said.
The years after the war passed in a relatively normal manner for Cini. He married Ann, his high school sweetheart, and they raised a daughter and son in Davenport. He worked in the human resources department at Deere & Co. before retiring and now holds a similar position at UnitedHealthcare.
But in early June, he received a letter from Tours of Peace Vietnam Veterans, or TOP, a Tucson, Ariz., nonprofit organization that works to help veterans and their families recover from the Vietnam War. Among other programs, the group often travels to Vietnam to conduct humanitarian work and collect equipment, uniforms and dog tags left behind by soldiers.
The letter stated that the organization had found the dog tag from his boot. Soon, a volunteer from TOP called to verify he was the owner of the tag. The person had a variety of Cini’s personal information but asked for the last four digits of his Social Security number to confirm that the tag was his. Suspicious that the call might be part of a scam, Cini declined to share the information.
A second letter came two weeks later, this time with a small black jewelry box.
“I opened it up, and there was the dog tag,” Cini said. “I got goosebumps about three inches on my arm.”
“It was amazing,” his wife said. “We could hardly get through the letter.”
Cini said holding the tag in his hands more than three decades and a lifetime of experiences later evoked a range of long-forgotten memories.
“It takes you back real quick,” he said.
He wondered who found his tag and how the discovery was made. He has no desire to return to Vietnam as some veterans have chosen to do, however.
Linda Stocker, personal effects coordinator for TOP, said on trips to Vietnam, members of the organization often purchase dog tags for sale as tourist souvenirs.
The first person who examines the tags once they reach the United States is a person who once produces them for the military, Stocker said. He watches for fakes, but hasn’t found any yet, she said.
Then it is Stocker’s job to hunt down the owners of the tags. She said TOP has brought back roughly 1,400 tags from Vietnam and returns between 30 and 50 each month.
“But it is rare when you look at how many Vietnam veterans there are,” she said.
David L. Woods, Scott County director of Veterans Affairs, said he has not aware of any other Quad-City veterans having their tags returned to them.
“It’s not really too common,” he said. “This is a little unusual.”
Almost as important to Cini as getting his dog tags back was the letter that accompanied it. The last two lines of the message read: “Welcome home,” something few veterans heard when they returned from Vietnam, he said.
Woods said the phrase has become a powerful greeting among veterans from Vietnam and other wars.
Today, the lightweight piece of metal, which is slightly browning on the edges and along the letters, hangs from a chain around Cini’s neck. Having a piece of his past returned to him helps provide some closure on an event that irreversibly affected his life, he said.
“Now it’s OK,” he said. “I got something back.”
Katie Vaughn can be contacted from (563) 383-2282 or kvaughn@qctimes.com.
What’s a dog tag?
Standard military dog tags contain information to identify a soldier.
The last name is on the first line, the first name and middle initial are on the second, the Social Security number is on the third line, the blood type is on the fourth line and the soldier’s religion is on the final line. — www.military-dogtags.com
To learn more
For more information on Tours of Peace Vietnam Veterans, visit the group’s Web site at http://www.topvietnamveterans.org.