Marine Corporal Larry Hughes served in Vietnam, but he never said anything about his missing dog tag.
His son, Carl Hughes, called him a humble man who never spoke about his time in the military, Fox 13 reported Friday.
In 1966, the Marine’s dog tag vanished while he was serving near the Da Nang Province.
Thanks to a group of special people, the Marine’s dog tag is no longer lost.
In October, while former Virginia Senator Jim Webb and Notre Dome Professor Michael Desch guided students through Da Nang, they were shocked to find it.
At one point during the trip, they were near an airstrip previously used by Americans when a villager told them he had picked up several dog tags while plowing the rice fields.
The man kept one on a keychain, therefore, Desch asked if the group might take it home.
Meanwhile, Webb discovered that Corporal Hughes had passed away. However, his son and sister still lived in Inglis, Florida, and Webb delivered the dog tag to the family on Friday.
“I couldn’t believe it. It was like a step back in time,” the man’s sister, Patricia Hughes Prickett, commented.
“I was always so proud of Larry. There was never a moment when I was not proud of him. And I’m just glad that he’s been recognized,” she added.
An image shows relatives with a plaque and the dog tag displayed in a shadowbox:
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