Dog Tag Return – Washington DC – Harley Harless
Event Date
Location
Vietnam Wall
.
Washington, DC
Ilbert, WV – Harley David Harless was born November 2, 1949. He served in the United States Army during Vietnam, returning home in 1969. He served with the 1st Brigade, 50th infantry – the Short Range Ambush Patrol.
Jack Noble, a former comrade, remembers Harley as a great guy and excellent soldier – Harley was the RTO for his platoon.
Unfortunately, Harley was killed 6 years after returning home from Vietnam.Now, 36 years after his untimely death, his daughter Amy, will be receiving her fathers dog tag that has found its way home from Vietnam.
Amy will be presented her fathers dog tag over the Memorial Day Weekend at the Vietnam Wall in Washington. The presentation will take place with the Nam Knights of America MC, along with the POW/MIA Awareness Committee members.
Harley’s dog tag was brought home from Vietnam by retired Chief of Police (Deptford, NJ) Ray Milligan in 1993. Milligan was a volunteer with a group called Operation Smile, a medical mission that travels the globe and performs corrective surgery for children with cleft palates or cleft lips, mostly in Third World countries. Milligan, a former Force Recon Marine who’d served in Vietanam, had gone to Vietnam as logistics support coordinator for the medical program.
There, in the small shops that lined the street outside his hotel, vendors were selling what appeared to be old, rusty American dog tags as relics of the war. It was unsettling to him—so he purchased them and brought them home.
The POW/MIA Awareness Committee of NJ is now in possession of the dog tags and they continue to research, locate and coordinate the returns with the help of many veteran & military organizations. For more information about the project, visit their website at www.powmiaawareness.org.
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