Article: Dog tag finds its way home

The story of how that old Marine Corps dog tag ended up for sale in a shop in Vietnam will never be known. But it's home now. Earlier this week, I gave it to Maxine Fredrickson of New Lenox. The dog tag had belonged to her son, Pfc. John Robert Shiner, 20, who was killed in Vietnam in the fall of '68. The dog tag was mailed to me by Barney Atwater of Atlanta, Ga. It is one of 11 American military dog tags that Atwater's friend bought for $5 each during a trip to Vietnam.

Atwater found Shiner's name on the Vietnam Memorial and tracked down his hometown of Joliet. Then he contacted me, in order to find the family.

"Give my best to John Shiner's family," Atwater wrote on a note with the dog ...

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