Recovered dog tags returned to three war veteran – John Crazy Bear
March 18, 2012 9:12 AM – SUZANNE ULBRICH – DAILY NEWS STAFF
One Onslow County veteran received a special birthday present this weekend.
John Crazy Bear, who served 22 years in the Marine Corps and fought in three wars, was reunited with dog tags he lost in Vietnam.
In the presence of his son and loved ones and in honor of his 81st birthday, three Delaware Valley Chapter Nam Knights presented Crazy Bear with his dog tags aboard Camp Lejeune Saturday following morning colors.
“This is an honor I never expected,” said Crazy Bear, kissing the dog tags and overcome with emotion.
Crazy Bear, who described himself as a “full blown” Lakota Sioux, was born at the Sioux Indian Reservation Standing Rock in Fort Yates, N.D.
At age 14, he hitchhiked about 400 miles to a recruiting station “hungry and broke.” Since the Army recruiters were at lunch and, partly because he liked the uniforms, he asked the Marines if he could enlist.
“I don’t know why the service meant so much to me, maybe it’s that warrior instinct,” he said.
Since he was underage and an orphan, he got his grandfather to sign his permission and, in 1945, enlisted in the Corps.
“They took me in and did not question me,” he said. “The proudest moment of my life was when I was called a Marine.”
Crazy Bear went on to serve in World War II, the Korean War and in Vietnam.
Nearly two decades later, while volunteering in Vietnam as a logistics support coordinator for Operation Smile, a medical mission traveling the globe to Third World countries to perform corrective surgery on children with cleft palates and cleft lips, Ray Milligan, a retired Deptford, N.J police chief and a former Force Recon Marine who served in Vietnam, came across a vendor near his hotel selling old rusty American dog tags as relics of war.
Milligan decided he would purchase all of them and, with the help of several South Jersey veterans’ organizations, around 90 dog tags have been returned to their owners.
About 375 remaining dog tags were handed over to the POW/MIA Awareness Committee of N.J. last year, and they continue to reunite dog tags with veterans and their families with the help of Nam Knights of America MC, a military law enforcement motorcycle club.
Delaware Valley Chapter Nam Knights Brit Henderson, Bill Loh and Bob Hamilton left their homes Thursday on their motorcycles and rode to Camp Lejeune to personally deliver Crazy Bear’s dog tags to him and present him with a Nam Challenge Coin.
For Henderson, it was his first delivery of a dog tag.
“It was tremendous,” he said. “It is just such an honor and very heartwarming.”
Bob Pavlik and Joe Haralson, from the Cape Fear Chapter of Nam Knights, also attended the ceremony.
“Anytime you can bring a dog tag home, (it’s from the heart),” said Haralson, a Vietnam veteran. “It’s an honor to even attend something like this even though I am not a Marine.”
Organizing the event took almost a year, said his Crazy Bear’s son, Jacksonville Fire Department Battalion Chief John Crazy Bear, who calls himself “Little John.”
“(Having his dog tags returned) I feel like pop is getting some closure in his life,” he said.
Surrounded by Nam Knights, military personnel, family and friends, and wearing the dog tag around his neck Crazy Bear told everyone not to worry.
“I’m going to wear it all the time; I’m not going to lose them again.”