Ancestry Magazine

It started with a letter saying someone had located Gary Miracle’s dog tags and wanted to return them—thirty years after Miracle’s death in Vietnam.

For Karen Kolbe, the recipient of the letter and Miracle’s sister, the message was a mixed blessing.

“I was stunned,” she says. “I thought why after all this time are his dog tags coming home? Why, after thirty-some years? Why is this happening?”

The letter was from TOP (Tour of Peace) Vietnam Veterans, a non-profit group that, among other projects, reunites veterans, descendants, or other family members with dog tags they find in Vietnam. It’s a process that sounds much simpler than it really is.

But locating the rightful family of a soldier who may have either been injured or killed in Vietnam, who may not have had descendants at the time of enlistment, whose family may have split or moved around the globe, and whose parents may no longer be living isn’t a simple task. It’s one, however, that TOP volunteer Linda Stocker has made easier through genealogy.

Stocker got involved in the project with her husband, also a Vietnam veteran. Blame serendipity, but she learned of the dog tag–return program at about the same time that she was developing an interest in family history. The two seemed to go hand in hand.

Prior to TOP sending a letter, Stocker does her homework, employing similar steps for each set of dog tags the organization tries to return. Her first step is to determine if the soldier was killed in action or if he or she returned home. Using an all-access subscription donated by Ancestry.com, Stocker searches in the site’s military databases. She also tries the Social Security Death Index (SSDI), although usually her SSDI searches are futile. (“The men who were killed in action don’t always show up in the SSDI because they weren’t employed before entering the military,” says Stocker, “or because their families never applied for benefits.”) After exhausting these two resources, Stocker moves next to the site’s online family trees and message boards and the obituary collection.

“You have to work with what clues you have. With a soldier, you know their hometown and you know their name,” says Stocker. “From there, I just go in and start digging. So far, I’ve been really lucky—at least one time out of ten, I’ll find an actual family tree, and I’ll find surviving family members.”

Stocker takes whatever family information she learns at Ancestry.com, makes a few educated guesses and searches for more facts on memorial websites and family websites. Her goal is to find the closest surviving family member, which, at times, means Stocker is also researching a veteran’s parents, siblings, and collateral relatives—building an entire family tree. When she’s satisfied that she’s found the right family member, Stocker conducts one final search at Ancestry.com, in the site’s People Finder, for current contact information.

Finally, a letter is sent from Jess DeVaney, TOP president, notifying the surviving family members that TOP has the s oldier’s dog tags and would like to hand them over, if the family is interested. Sometimes DeVaney hears back from the family. Sometimes he doesn’t.

“We usually have the phone number,” says DeVaney, “but we choose not to give them a call. They receive a letter, they can process the information, and sometimes it’s a long time before they respond. Everyone reacts in different ways. Some of [the families] are just so happy to get the dog tags back—they’re always moved. It’s a surprise to have that door opened again. Usually it’s a good thing. But sometimes it’s very sad.”

It was both—good and sad—for Kolbe. After receiving the letter, Kolbe had her daughter research TOP, making sure the organization was legitimate. In the meantime, Kolbe prepared herself to receive the dog tags.

“I didn’t know how to interpret any of it,” says Kolbe. “The whole thing was like being in a dream and not being able to understand what was going on.”

It took a little time, but eventually Kolbe felt that accepting the dog tags was something she was meant to do. Learning that someone had the dog tags “made it somehow seem like Gary was here or he was trying to tell me something,” says Kolbe. “It took me back to when Gary told me he was joining the marines. And when he came home on leave—he had an expert marksmanship medal. I told him it was like he signed a death warrant. I couldn’t see him off. I wrote to him later to tell him I was sorry I wasn’t there. But, really, I just couldn’t handle it.”

Finally, at Kolbe’s request, TOP mailed the dog tags to her on 17 January 2006.

“It felt kind of eerie at first,” says Kolbe today. “[The dog tags] brought back all of the memories—hearing that he died, that everyone was coming home, of going to the funeral, of my mom saying it’s not him, it’s not him. Only it was.”

Now the dog tags sit in Kolbe’s bedroom. She plans to give one to her surviving sibling, a sister—she’s just waiting for the right time and right way to do it.

“A lot of those kids died for nothing,” she says. “But getting the dog tags . . . it was like [Gary] saying he made his peace with it. Now I have to.”