October 27, 2023 • 19 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Brent Evanhoff tells the story of how he reunited in the jungles of Vietnam with the son he never knew—and how through that experience he managed to help another veteran reconnect with his dogtags.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about
everything here on this show. And we love hearing your
stories up next to a story from a listener On eleven
hundred kfab in Omaha, Nebraska. Brett Evanoff joined the Army
right before the Gulf War.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Here's Brent.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I was born in Council Plus, Iowa, and raised good
Midwestern values. I come from a history of family serving
in the military all the way back to World War One.
Both grandparents fought in World War Two, father Vietnam era,
countless aunts and uncles that had served over the years.
That influenced me quite a bit, and I decided to
(00:54):
join the military. Graduated high school early, just didn't really
quite know what I want to do in this world
other than serve the military and go on to do
good things. December nineteen eighty nine and listed as a
Cavalry Scout. And I went through Calvary Scout Training Fortnights,
Kentucky and found myself assigned to the third Army Calvary
(01:17):
Regiment in Fort Bliss, Texas, May of nineteen ninety and
being a new private, you know, everything's still new to me.
I'm training in August of nineteen ninety We were out
on a two week field training exercise when.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Iraqi evated Kuwait. To all intents and purposes, Kuwait has
ceased to exist as an independent sovereign nation.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Good afternoon, everyone, Well, at this hour, a rock remains
in firm control of the tiny, oil rich country of Kuwait.
We had a warning order to prepare to deploy to
the Middle East. Didn't really understand the consequences as we
rolled back on posts and there's trains everywhere.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
We're loading tanks and Bradley.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
On trains to go to Beaumont, Texas. We're loading live
ammunition into these armored vehicles to go to Beaumont, Texas.
And we had about ten days to you know, kind
of finish shots and some we did some training. Being
a eighteen year old kid about to turn nineteen, the
last three days we.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Kind of had our own personal time, and.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
To be quite honest, I only remember about a third
of that time, you know, being young kids.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Off to war.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
You know, we trained hard and we kind of partied
pretty hard. Well, you know, I go over there overseas
and get on with my life, get out, go to
college at the University.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Of Iowa, and I graduated.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I was a Omaha fireman for a little while, and
then I proceeded to get interested in Antaesesia and left
and became certified as a certified restured nurse and esthetist
and found myself getting married to a woman, and we
had three beautiful children. And you know, my son is
interested in going in the military, graduating high school much
(03:11):
like I did. And great kid on head on his shoulders.
But I understand where he's coming from. You know, you
don't know what you want to do. And so he
was going to enlist in the military. And you know,
I'm in my ane seizure practice and I'm thinking, you know,
I'm in my mid forties and comfortable in my lifestyle,
(03:31):
and you know, I think I'm got the world by
the tail. And I find myself in a case, in
a Sishi case, and my sister text me about noon, said, hey,
can you talk? And I text her back, I'm in
a case. I call you later. She said, well, call
me when you get home. And I get home that day.
It was in February of two thousand and eighteen, and I.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Clicked back in the recliner.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I remember vividly, and the ceiling fan was on low
and she said, Bern, are you sitting down?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And she's twelve months younger than me.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And I know people out there with siblings, they know
when they're messing with you or when something all of
a sudden it is very serious.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
And I said, yeah, I'm sitting down, Sis, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
She bluntly told me that I have a twenty six
year old son I don't know about. And I vividly
remember looking at the ceiling fan. I watched the blade
go around three times and I kind of said, Sis,
I'm going to need a little more information. Well, the
(04:32):
backstory was my mom was or our housekeeping at another hospital,
retired two years earlier. She got into genealogy and swabbed
her buckle membrane and sent it in and she gets
like an email back saying, hey, you too, need to
really talk. And my mom didn't know what to do,
so she contacted my sister, and my sister kind of
was emailing this guy.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
And it turns out this guy was in the United.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
States Navy station in Italy, and he said, you know,
I you know, certificate says father unknown. You know, if
he doesn't, this person doesn't want to be a part
of my life. I understand that if they could tell
me a little bit about my maybe my genetic history,
if I need to be concerned about anything, I'd appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And I'm just floored. You know, here I have the
world by.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
The tail and and and then something like this happens
to you unexpectedly. I you know, you're only on this earth,
you know, a snap of a finger, fraction of a
second of time. Why would you not want to get
to know someone like that? And so I said, yes, Chris,
I would love to, you know, get a hold of him.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And my sister sent me a picture of him. You know,
we look alike.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
His mother was down at Fort Place, Texa's the same
time period I was. And you know, I just harken
back to that time where being a you know, raise
your hand if you've never done anything irresponsible. I remember
vividly video conferencing went to skyp up pops this this
(06:03):
handsome young stud.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
In the United States Navy serving overseas.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And we kind of just you know, said alow, and
you know, got to know each other a little bit,
and uh, it was really a wonderful experience. And you know,
as I you know, a month later, I kind of
talked to my family and you know, told them the
story and how good head on his shoulders, you know,
(06:32):
and we just kind of fometed this relationship of you know,
getting to know each other, you know, and this.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
This kid has an amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Ability to you know, I felt guilty, you know, because
I missed being a father to him during impressionable years.
And I felt guilty a lot of time. And he
kept interrupting me, saying, hey, let's not look in the
back the rear view there. Let's let's look down the
road and just enjoy what we have. And you know,
(07:03):
a lot of times it brings me to tears, to
be quite honest, that this young man could be so strong,
and it really humbled me in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So fast forward.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
My son's in the United States Army, and again I
call my son that I've always known, my old young son,
and Tyler my new old son. You know, he's in
the navy overseas in Italy. My son, my son Nicholas,
my old young son is in the army in Korea.
(07:37):
And I've got two high school girls. And you know,
when I got out of the army, I spent four
months backpacking through part of North Africa and Europe and
quite an adventure. And come to find out my new
old son has traveled extensively through Europe and has a
military history entrance interests much like I do and my
(07:57):
son Nicholas, my old young son. I thought, wow, you
know what an amazing experience. My two sons had not met.
That summer, I flew Tyler from Italy to meet his
sisters for the first time. Unfortunately, my son was already
in the army in Korea at that time, So I thought,
how can we all just kind of take this blessing
(08:22):
and tie it all in together. I came up with
a solution to I'd never traveled to Far East Asia,
so I put this out there and it kind of
came together. In May and June, we spent thirty days
backpacking through South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia to be
(08:43):
able to see my sons meet for the first time
and just kind of can try to connect ourselves as
a family as best we can underneath the circumstances. And
boy was it humbling and an amazing experience. So we're
traveling getting to know each other. Tyler, my new old
(09:04):
son does not have sisters, so watching them interact and
new big brother kind of as we're spending thirty taste
together literally staying in hostels and kind of roughen it.
You know, that's kind of what the adventure we were
looking for, teasing his new sisters, and likewise his sisters
teasing their new older brother back and brothers and brothers
(09:27):
kind of interacting, you know, as a as a father.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It really, you know, kind of I was very, very happy.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And you're listening to Brett evan Off. He finds out
he has a twenty six year old son he never
knew and this became the gift, a blessing, as he said,
and the son says, let's not look in the rear
view mirror, Dad. When we come back, more of this
remarkable voice, this beautiful story, Brett Evanoff's story here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(10:11):
in Bret Evanoff's story, and the family is reuniting, my
new old son, my old young son, and his two
daughters well traping around in Southeast Asia getting to know
each other better. Let's continue with the story.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
We decided that we wanted to see Vietnam, and in
order to see really Vietnam, they don't have a reliable
public transportation system, so you have to ride motorcycles. And
through a lot of research, I found a guide out
of d Nang and we spent five days touring on motorcycles,
my daughter riding behind me, and my other daughter riding
(10:53):
behind the guide, and my two sons riding their own motorcycles,
and we drove along the Ho Chi Min trail out
of the Nang, headed south to the Ashaw Valley, and
we got to permit from the communist government to climb
Hamburger Hill and road to Kasan, And everywhere we're going,
we're stopping in little villages and meeting these people and
(11:16):
still seeing a lot of remnants from the war in
a lot of ways. And we find ourselves at Kaison
and well, we're looking around at some of the bunkers
that had collapsed and were there, and a village local
villager came up to me and he had some trinkets
and he wanted to sell them. And I looked at
him and the first thing I saw was a US
(11:37):
military dog tech and then I saw North Vietnamese rusted
North Vietnamese Army medal and a few other trinkets and
so forth, and I knew I wanted them, so I paid.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I think I paid like seven dollars, and you know,
we went.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
On with our trip connected as a as a as
a family, and had an amazing experience. You know, my
my son that I've never known comes into my life
and we kind of come full circle with the family
that he's never known and my family with a son
they never knew.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Well, we get back from our trip to.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Omaha and I go back to work and I start
researching my time off this name on this tag, Well,
this name kind of had a unique first name spelling.
So the first thing I do is I use Internet
search to find see if he was maybe one of.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
The sixty eight thousand that were killed in the Vietnam War.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
And his name wasn't on there, which kind of gave
me hope that maybe I might be able to reconnect
this piece of property to a US military serviceman. My
preliminary Internet searches won't come up with anything. My wife
got interested and she kind of helped me look around.
And because of the gentleman's unique first spelling of his
(12:57):
first name, we come across an old obituary from Minnesota
of a gentleman that perhaps was this guy's father. In
the print that said survived by this gentleman and his wife.
And my wife took the first name of his wife
and the last name, and UH looked on social media
(13:18):
and found a Carol Hammond and we got a phone
number and I called and it was a voice machine,
and I said, you know, hello sir. You know my
name's Brent Devana from Omaha. I just returned from Vietnam.
And if I came back with a piece of property
(13:38):
that you may have left over there, if you're you know,
the mister that happened to losses property over there, you
would you please call me. And so a week went
by and it was a weekend and I'm doing stuff
around the house and I get a phone call from
this gentleman and he says, yes, you know, this is me.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I did serve.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I served actually two tour in Vietnam. You know, how
can I help you? And I proceeded to tell them that,
you know, I was traveling over there and.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Purchased this dog tag.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
And he the first thing he asked me, he goes,
what numbers are on there, and I proceeded to tell
them and goes, oh, that was from my second deployment.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Well, he proceeded to tell me his.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Story and he grew up in northern Minnesota and got
a little bit of trouble three months before the graduation
from high school. And back then, you either went to
jail or you went to the military, and he chose
the military and found himself in one hundred and seventy
third Airborne in Vietnam nineteen sixty seven nineteen sixty eight.
(14:45):
He told me that, you know that he was wounded
with a roadside bomb that was command detonated, and you know,
he if it wasn't for him wearing the radio that day,
that he probably would have loss his life because a
large piece of shrapnel had torn into the radio and
he was wounded in the leg and got knocked out actually,
(15:09):
and became conscious and recovered from that and went on
to serve in Berlin, Germany during the sixties and the
Cold War, decided that he wanted to go back to Vietnam,
so he found himself in one hundred and first Airborne
in nineteen sixty nine, nineteen seventy in Vietnam, and he
(15:29):
said that time was, you know, a lot different than
those first tour They were doing missions. You know that
they didn't necessarily always wore their rank or their insignia
or patches. And he was in the Battle of tam
Key and his platoon of thirty five found themselves surrounded
(15:50):
in a gun battle for at.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Least a day.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I thought, maybe he said too. And when the battle
was over he out of the thirty five, he was
one of seven survived, and in fact, of those seven,
two were not wounded, and he was one of them.
They proceeded to tell me that he decided that, you know,
back home in north woods of Minnesota was a place
that he'd like to go, and found himself there and
(16:14):
he actually runs a retreat for a local veterans group
up there, and hopefully one day I can meet him. Well,
we had a wonderful phone call. I hung up and
I told him that I'm going to be mailing this
piece of property to him, and I said, I bought
it from a villager in Cason, and he goes, wow,
you know, I never stepped one foot on Caison.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I operated about fifty miles south of there.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Actually, the only thing I can come up with is
you know, trading overtime, villagers and so forth. And he
doesn't remember one incident where.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
He specifically lost his dog tag, but I.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Mailed it to him, and you know, I get an
email about a week later from his wife and it's it.
You know, his wife says it really my effort to
track him down and return a piece of property from
his past really meant a.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Lot to him.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And you know, in my story just kind of comes
to a conclusion that two circles have been closed. A
son I never met before reunited with his father and
family that he's ever known, and that through our travels
together as a family, forming a new relationship, that we're
(17:34):
able to kind of bring full circle a veterans past
to him by reuniting him with something as simple as
a dog tag, which any member who's been in the
military knows how much.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
That is a part of their life at the time.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
So you know that those two experiences combined really humbles
me as a as a father, as a you know,
human being, and an American that you know, just when
you think that you think you have life figured out,
you know, the older I get, the more I firmly
(18:08):
believe life is truly stranger.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Than fiction, indeed, and that's what we learn here every
day telling stories, especially our listeners telling stories. Great job
is always by Robbie on the production, and a special
thanks to Brett Evanoff. And what a thing to do
for a guy. Most people would have taken that dog
tag and stuck at someplace, but he decided to track
(18:30):
the person down who it belonged to. And I only
know that my grandparents would have loved to have had
a dog tag or letters or anything from the sun
that died in World War Two, and all we got
was a flag. So for anybody who served and lost
somebody or even not lost somebody, the importance of this paraphernalia,
well it's not small.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
By the way. This show, as you know.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Is free to you, but it is not free to make.
And any donations you'd like to make to us to
continue to hear beautiful stories like this, well they'd be appreciated.
Send any donations to our American Stories dot com. We're
a nonprofit and we love what we do, and I
know you love listening to these stories, but we want
to keep telling them. Brett Evanoff's story straight out of
(19:14):
eleven hundred kfab in Omaha, Nebraska. Here on our American stories.
This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about
everything here on this show. And we love hearing your
stories up next to a story from a listener On eleven
hundred kfab in Omaha, Nebraska. Brett Evanoff joined the Army
right before the Gulf War.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Here's Brent.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I was born in Council Plus, Iowa, and raised good
Midwestern values. I come from a history of family serving
in the military all the way back to World War One.
Both grandparents fought in World War Two, father Vietnam era,
countless aunts and uncles that had served over the years.
That influenced me quite a bit, and I decided to
(00:54):
join the military. Graduated high school early, just didn't really
quite know what I want to do in this world
other than serve the military and go on to do
good things. December nineteen eighty nine and listed as a
Cavalry Scout. And I went through Calvary Scout Training Fortnights,
Kentucky and found myself assigned to the third Army Calvary
(01:17):
Regiment in Fort Bliss, Texas, May of nineteen ninety and
being a new private, you know, everything's still new to me.
I'm training in August of nineteen ninety We were out
on a two week field training exercise when.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Iraqi evated Kuwait. To all intents and purposes, Kuwait has
ceased to exist as an independent sovereign nation.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Good afternoon, everyone, Well, at this hour, a rock remains
in firm control of the tiny, oil rich country of Kuwait.
We had a warning order to prepare to deploy to
the Middle East. Didn't really understand the consequences as we
rolled back on posts and there's trains everywhere.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
We're loading tanks and Bradley.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
On trains to go to Beaumont, Texas. We're loading live
ammunition into these armored vehicles to go to Beaumont, Texas.
And we had about ten days to you know, kind
of finish shots and some we did some training. Being
a eighteen year old kid about to turn nineteen, the
last three days we.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Kind of had our own personal time, and.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
To be quite honest, I only remember about a third
of that time, you know, being young kids.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Off to war.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
You know, we trained hard and we kind of partied
pretty hard. Well, you know, I go over there overseas
and get on with my life, get out, go to
college at the University.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Of Iowa, and I graduated.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I was a Omaha fireman for a little while, and
then I proceeded to get interested in Antaesesia and left
and became certified as a certified restured nurse and esthetist
and found myself getting married to a woman, and we
had three beautiful children. And you know, my son is
interested in going in the military, graduating high school much
(03:11):
like I did. And great kid on head on his shoulders.
But I understand where he's coming from. You know, you
don't know what you want to do. And so he
was going to enlist in the military. And you know,
I'm in my ane seizure practice and I'm thinking, you know,
I'm in my mid forties and comfortable in my lifestyle,
(03:31):
and you know, I think I'm got the world by
the tail. And I find myself in a case, in
a Sishi case, and my sister text me about noon, said, hey,
can you talk? And I text her back, I'm in
a case. I call you later. She said, well, call
me when you get home. And I get home that day.
It was in February of two thousand and eighteen, and I.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Clicked back in the recliner.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I remember vividly, and the ceiling fan was on low
and she said, Bern, are you sitting down?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And she's twelve months younger than me.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And I know people out there with siblings, they know
when they're messing with you or when something all of
a sudden it is very serious.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
And I said, yeah, I'm sitting down, Sis, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
She bluntly told me that I have a twenty six
year old son I don't know about. And I vividly
remember looking at the ceiling fan. I watched the blade
go around three times and I kind of said, Sis,
I'm going to need a little more information. Well, the
(04:32):
backstory was my mom was or our housekeeping at another hospital,
retired two years earlier. She got into genealogy and swabbed
her buckle membrane and sent it in and she gets
like an email back saying, hey, you too, need to
really talk. And my mom didn't know what to do,
so she contacted my sister, and my sister kind of
was emailing this guy.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
And it turns out this guy was in the United.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
States Navy station in Italy, and he said, you know,
I you know, certificate says father unknown. You know, if
he doesn't, this person doesn't want to be a part
of my life. I understand that if they could tell
me a little bit about my maybe my genetic history,
if I need to be concerned about anything, I'd appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And I'm just floored. You know, here I have the
world by.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
The tail and and and then something like this happens
to you unexpectedly. I you know, you're only on this earth,
you know, a snap of a finger, fraction of a
second of time. Why would you not want to get
to know someone like that? And so I said, yes, Chris,
I would love to, you know, get a hold of him.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And my sister sent me a picture of him. You know,
we look alike.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
His mother was down at Fort Place, Texa's the same
time period I was. And you know, I just harken
back to that time where being a you know, raise
your hand if you've never done anything irresponsible. I remember
vividly video conferencing went to skyp up pops this this
(06:03):
handsome young stud.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
In the United States Navy serving overseas.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And we kind of just you know, said alow, and
you know, got to know each other a little bit,
and uh, it was really a wonderful experience. And you know,
as I you know, a month later, I kind of
talked to my family and you know, told them the
story and how good head on his shoulders, you know,
(06:32):
and we just kind of fometed this relationship of you know,
getting to know each other, you know, and this.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
This kid has an amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Ability to you know, I felt guilty, you know, because
I missed being a father to him during impressionable years.
And I felt guilty a lot of time. And he
kept interrupting me, saying, hey, let's not look in the
back the rear view there. Let's let's look down the
road and just enjoy what we have. And you know,
(07:03):
a lot of times it brings me to tears, to
be quite honest, that this young man could be so strong,
and it really humbled me in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So fast forward.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
My son's in the United States Army, and again I
call my son that I've always known, my old young son,
and Tyler my new old son. You know, he's in
the navy overseas in Italy. My son, my son Nicholas,
my old young son is in the army in Korea.
(07:37):
And I've got two high school girls. And you know,
when I got out of the army, I spent four
months backpacking through part of North Africa and Europe and
quite an adventure. And come to find out my new
old son has traveled extensively through Europe and has a
military history entrance interests much like I do and my
(07:57):
son Nicholas, my old young son. I thought, wow, you
know what an amazing experience. My two sons had not met.
That summer, I flew Tyler from Italy to meet his
sisters for the first time. Unfortunately, my son was already
in the army in Korea at that time, So I thought,
how can we all just kind of take this blessing
(08:22):
and tie it all in together. I came up with
a solution to I'd never traveled to Far East Asia,
so I put this out there and it kind of
came together. In May and June, we spent thirty days
backpacking through South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia to be
(08:43):
able to see my sons meet for the first time
and just kind of can try to connect ourselves as
a family as best we can underneath the circumstances. And
boy was it humbling and an amazing experience. So we're
traveling getting to know each other. Tyler, my new old
(09:04):
son does not have sisters, so watching them interact and
new big brother kind of as we're spending thirty taste
together literally staying in hostels and kind of roughen it.
You know, that's kind of what the adventure we were
looking for, teasing his new sisters, and likewise his sisters
teasing their new older brother back and brothers and brothers
(09:27):
kind of interacting, you know, as a as a father.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It really, you know, kind of I was very, very happy.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And you're listening to Brett evan Off. He finds out
he has a twenty six year old son he never
knew and this became the gift, a blessing, as he said,
and the son says, let's not look in the rear
view mirror, Dad. When we come back, more of this
remarkable voice, this beautiful story, Brett Evanoff's story here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(10:11):
in Bret Evanoff's story, and the family is reuniting, my
new old son, my old young son, and his two
daughters well traping around in Southeast Asia getting to know
each other better. Let's continue with the story.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
We decided that we wanted to see Vietnam, and in
order to see really Vietnam, they don't have a reliable
public transportation system, so you have to ride motorcycles. And
through a lot of research, I found a guide out
of d Nang and we spent five days touring on motorcycles,
my daughter riding behind me, and my other daughter riding
(10:53):
behind the guide, and my two sons riding their own motorcycles,
and we drove along the Ho Chi Min trail out
of the Nang, headed south to the Ashaw Valley, and
we got to permit from the communist government to climb
Hamburger Hill and road to Kasan, And everywhere we're going,
we're stopping in little villages and meeting these people and
(11:16):
still seeing a lot of remnants from the war in
a lot of ways. And we find ourselves at Kaison
and well, we're looking around at some of the bunkers
that had collapsed and were there, and a village local
villager came up to me and he had some trinkets
and he wanted to sell them. And I looked at
him and the first thing I saw was a US
(11:37):
military dog tech and then I saw North Vietnamese rusted
North Vietnamese Army medal and a few other trinkets and
so forth, and I knew I wanted them, so I paid.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I think I paid like seven dollars, and you know,
we went.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
On with our trip connected as a as a as
a family, and had an amazing experience. You know, my
my son that I've never known comes into my life
and we kind of come full circle with the family
that he's never known and my family with a son
they never knew.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Well, we get back from our trip to.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Omaha and I go back to work and I start
researching my time off this name on this tag, Well,
this name kind of had a unique first name spelling.
So the first thing I do is I use Internet
search to find see if he was maybe one of.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
The sixty eight thousand that were killed in the Vietnam War.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
And his name wasn't on there, which kind of gave
me hope that maybe I might be able to reconnect
this piece of property to a US military serviceman. My
preliminary Internet searches won't come up with anything. My wife
got interested and she kind of helped me look around.
And because of the gentleman's unique first spelling of his
(12:57):
first name, we come across an old obituary from Minnesota
of a gentleman that perhaps was this guy's father. In
the print that said survived by this gentleman and his wife.
And my wife took the first name of his wife
and the last name, and UH looked on social media
(13:18):
and found a Carol Hammond and we got a phone
number and I called and it was a voice machine,
and I said, you know, hello sir. You know my
name's Brent Devana from Omaha. I just returned from Vietnam.
And if I came back with a piece of property
(13:38):
that you may have left over there, if you're you know,
the mister that happened to losses property over there, you
would you please call me. And so a week went
by and it was a weekend and I'm doing stuff
around the house and I get a phone call from
this gentleman and he says, yes, you know, this is me.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I did serve.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I served actually two tour in Vietnam. You know, how
can I help you? And I proceeded to tell them that,
you know, I was traveling over there and.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Purchased this dog tag.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
And he the first thing he asked me, he goes,
what numbers are on there, and I proceeded to tell
them and goes, oh, that was from my second deployment.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Well, he proceeded to tell me his.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Story and he grew up in northern Minnesota and got
a little bit of trouble three months before the graduation
from high school. And back then, you either went to
jail or you went to the military, and he chose
the military and found himself in one hundred and seventy
third Airborne in Vietnam nineteen sixty seven nineteen sixty eight.
(14:45):
He told me that, you know that he was wounded
with a roadside bomb that was command detonated, and you know,
he if it wasn't for him wearing the radio that day,
that he probably would have loss his life because a
large piece of shrapnel had torn into the radio and
he was wounded in the leg and got knocked out actually,
(15:09):
and became conscious and recovered from that and went on
to serve in Berlin, Germany during the sixties and the
Cold War, decided that he wanted to go back to Vietnam,
so he found himself in one hundred and first Airborne
in nineteen sixty nine, nineteen seventy in Vietnam, and he
(15:29):
said that time was, you know, a lot different than
those first tour They were doing missions. You know that
they didn't necessarily always wore their rank or their insignia
or patches. And he was in the Battle of tam
Key and his platoon of thirty five found themselves surrounded
(15:50):
in a gun battle for at.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Least a day.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I thought, maybe he said too. And when the battle
was over he out of the thirty five, he was
one of seven survived, and in fact, of those seven,
two were not wounded, and he was one of them.
They proceeded to tell me that he decided that, you know,
back home in north woods of Minnesota was a place
that he'd like to go, and found himself there and
(16:14):
he actually runs a retreat for a local veterans group
up there, and hopefully one day I can meet him. Well,
we had a wonderful phone call. I hung up and
I told him that I'm going to be mailing this
piece of property to him, and I said, I bought
it from a villager in Cason, and he goes, wow,
you know, I never stepped one foot on Caison.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I operated about fifty miles south of there.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Actually, the only thing I can come up with is
you know, trading overtime, villagers and so forth. And he
doesn't remember one incident where.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
He specifically lost his dog tag, but I.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Mailed it to him, and you know, I get an
email about a week later from his wife and it's it.
You know, his wife says it really my effort to
track him down and return a piece of property from
his past really meant a.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Lot to him.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And you know, in my story just kind of comes
to a conclusion that two circles have been closed. A
son I never met before reunited with his father and
family that he's ever known, and that through our travels
together as a family, forming a new relationship, that we're
(17:34):
able to kind of bring full circle a veterans past
to him by reuniting him with something as simple as
a dog tag, which any member who's been in the
military knows how much.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
That is a part of their life at the time.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
So you know that those two experiences combined really humbles
me as a as a father, as a you know,
human being, and an American that you know, just when
you think that you think you have life figured out,
you know, the older I get, the more I firmly
(18:08):
believe life is truly stranger.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Than fiction, indeed, and that's what we learn here every
day telling stories, especially our listeners telling stories. Great job
is always by Robbie on the production, and a special
thanks to Brett Evanoff. And what a thing to do
for a guy. Most people would have taken that dog
tag and stuck at someplace, but he decided to track
(18:30):
the person down who it belonged to. And I only
know that my grandparents would have loved to have had
a dog tag or letters or anything from the sun
that died in World War Two, and all we got
was a flag. So for anybody who served and lost
somebody or even not lost somebody, the importance of this paraphernalia,
well it's not small.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
By the way. This show, as you know.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Is free to you, but it is not free to make.
And any donations you'd like to make to us to
continue to hear beautiful stories like this, well they'd be appreciated.
Send any donations to our American Stories dot com. We're
a nonprofit and we love what we do, and I
know you love listening to these stories, but we want
to keep telling them. Brett Evanoff's story straight out of
(19:14):
eleven hundred kfab in Omaha, Nebraska. Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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