Michael Pierson received an unusual package just before Christmas. The Vietnam veteran was contacted out of the blue by a couple claiming to have found his missing dog tag while on a trip to Vietnam.

“It was by shear luck this came back to me,” said Pierson. “I didn’t remember losing it. I got it two weeks before Christmas. I thought it was a hoax at first, but it was the real thing. The couple who sent it live in New Hampshire. They called in early December to confirm it was me. It brought back a lot of memories.”

Identified only as “Bob and Ann” on their website, www.canamission.com, the couple described their discovery of a thriving dog-tag souvenir business in Vietnam and their desire to see those tags returned to their owners, or to their owner’s families. Since that time, veterans around the nation have been unexpectedly reunited with their lost tags.

“There are tours where veterans go back to Nam,” said Pierson. “They found my dog tag in Saigon, and I wasn’t in Saigon. It was like a flea market, and they sell them as souvenirs. There were something like 1,400, and they brought them back to see if they could find who they belong to.”