Sons feel mixed emotions after NKorea returns dad’s dog tag
WASHINGTON — The lone military identification tag that North Korea provided with 55 boxes of human remains last month belonged to Master Sgt. Charles H. McDaniel, an Army medic from Indiana who was killed in the opening months of the Korean War.
The Army on Wednesday handed McDaniel’s slightly corroded dog tag to his sons, Charles Jr. and Larry, who were so young when their father perished that they have little memory of him. Charles, 71, told reporters he was moved to tears when he got the phone call at home in Indianapolis last week informing him that his father’s dog tag had been returned.
“It’s a very mixed, jumbled moment for us,” he said, referring to the emotions he and his brother feel so many years after having grown up without their biological father, never knowing for sure what happened to him in a war many Americans have forgotten.
“At least we have this,” he said, pointing to the dog tag, imprinted with the name, Charles Hobert McDaniel, and a service number.