My privilege to be able to be involved in this worthwhile project

I am so proud today to be able to share with you one of the stories on the research Cindy and I have been doing online to help locate families of veterans so the dog tags recovered in Vietnam by TOP can be returned to them. Most of the stories are very heartwarming but confidential until such time as the family gives permission for them to be shared. As the following story has been published in a The Rocky Mount Telegram newspaper in North Carolina...I can now share it with you.

Veterans group returns dog tags to widow

By John Ramsey, Rocky Mount Telegram
Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Before Jimmie Batchelor died in December 2002, the Vietnam veteran often told his wife, Wanda, he lamented losing his dog tags in combat.

Three years after Jimmie's death, Wanda Batchelor opened a surprising letter mailed to her in November.

Jimmie Batchelor's dog tags were in the United States, recovered by the nonprofit group Tours of Peace Vietnam Veterans, stated the letter, which also asked Wanda's permission to return the tags.

"I had to read it twice to make sure of what I read," said Batchelor, who lives in Nashville. "It was amazing. He wanted these dog tags back, and here I was getting them."

Near the end of November, Batchelor held in her palm a battered silver tag, still stained with specks of red dirt from a Vietnam battlefield, that summarized her husband's military life in five brief lines: his name, military ID number, B positive blood type, Social Security number and Methodist religion.

"The fact that they found them in the field after all these years, that's pretty amazing," said Batchelor, who married Jimmie before he joined the Army and was deployed to Vietnam in 1968. "It helped me to get his because it was so important to Jimmie."

TOP Vietnam Veterans, founded by a Marines Vietnam veteran in 1998, tries to provide veterans and their family members with opportunities for healing. In addition to finding and returning lost items, mostly dog tags, the organization offers trips to Vietnam to see the former military sites and the rest of the country.

"We just felt like it was something that somebody had to do," said organization President Jess DeVaney, who added that they had found more than 1,100 dog tags. "It's a great thing we can do, and it's another way we can help families heal from their losses."

Batchelor said she plans to have the dog tag framed with Jimmie's other memorabilia, which includes two Purple Hearts. She said she was grateful to TOP Vietnam Veterans because she often felt her husband, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and died from exposure to Agent Orange, was neglected.

"That kind of hurt Jimmie's feelings," she said. "People just don't understand."

Jimmie, like many other Vietnam veterans, rarely spoke of his time in combat, Batchelor said. But when he mentioned Vietnam, he would usually add something about his dog tags.
"He mentioned them several times, that he wanted his dog tags and that he was sorry he lost them," Batchelor said, unsure of how Jimmie would react to knowing the tags were home. "He would just probably say, 'They're mine and they're back where they belong.'"

I thank God every day that life can have such meaning for me at this point in time...