Proof

I’m going to a small business workshop this week that’s free to veterans.

Although they would probably take my word for it, I figured I should have something to prove that I was in the U.S. Air Force and am, therefore, a Vietnam Era veteran.

I have no idea where my discharge papers and my honorable discharge certificate are, other than to say they’re in a box in the garage somewhere. I have some photos of myself in uniform taken at a BX photo booth at Lackland AFB and the big group photo of me and everyone else in Flight 1405, but those seem silly and tedious when it comes to showing them to anyone.

Then I remembered my dog tag. Originally, I had a set of two, but one was attached to the zipper pull on a camera bag that was stolen from my car in front of the Indianapolis Star-News Building in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. By the time the bag and its contents turned up in an Indianapolis pawn shop, the tag had been removed and presumably discarded.

The remaining tag lives in a jewelry box in my closet, but for today it’s hanging around my neck on its original chain.