Dog Tag of Harley Harless to be returned to daughter at the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC over Memorial Day Weekend
Harley David Harless was born November 2, 1949. He served in the 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 be made by the POW/MIA Awareness Committee of NJ and the Nam Knights of America MC.
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. With the help of several South Jersey veterans organizations they were able to return about 90 dog tags over the years.
Eventually though, they had no more time to spend on the project, so they handed over the remaining dog tags — approx. 375 – to the POW/MIA last year. THe POW/MIA Committee continues to research, locate and reunite the dog tags with the veterans and families.