Five days after photos of an Ohio World War II veteran's U.S. Army ID were posted on social media, the dog tag was in the hands of his daughter in Preble County.
“I got it this afternoon, it’s in my hand right now,” Pamela Weadick said from her home.
Ronald Sneed and Kathy Ruth found the military ID in the backyard of their Bristol, Virginia, home last month. On Saturday, Sneed posted photos of it on Facebook, where Weadick’s cousin spotted it and alerted her. The next day, Weadick confirmed the tag belonged to her father.
Weadick said her father had been on her mind all week long.
“I was in total shock,” she said. “We never dreamed it would be found … It’s just phenomenal to me.”
The tag could have been buried for up to 76 years, and was found where her father used to live. Her father, who legally changed his name from John Scott Faulkner to Scott Falkner as a young man because he didn’t like the name John or the “u” in his last name, joined the Army in 1941. Six months later, he was medically discharged because a firearm blew out his eardrum, Weadick said.
He worked as a farmhand for years, as a tool and die maker and later as an auto mechanic, she said. Her father and mother settled in Eaton around 1945, where they raised four children. Scott Falkner died in 1970. Weadick said of her siblings, only she and her brother, Ronnie “Bud” Falkner of Piqua, survive.
She knows exactly where to put her new-found treasure: “I’m going to buy a small picture frame and I have my dad’s flag that was on his casket … I have it in a shadow box and I’m going to put this in with that.”
Her cousin, Bobby Faulkner, told her he plans to search the Bristol property with his grandson’s metal detector to see if he can find the second tag that goes with the set. If they find it, she said her brother can have that one.
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