I recently came across Dad’s dog tags from WWII. They were dented and gray, but still readable. William I Hall on the front, with his serial number, 16016203, on the back. I looked at the tags, and the grime of three continents on them. I kept thinking they are too much a part of history to leave in an envelope in a drawer, which is where they spent the last 70 years.

He received these dog tags at the age of 16, when he joined the Army in September of 1940. He had them on during the Atlantic Crossing in late October of 1942. When they invaded North Africa and he came ashore in November of that year, they were there clinking together (or maybe taped together) under his shirt.

They would have been around his neck in January of ‘43 in Algeria, during the parade for President Roosevelt, just after the Casablanca conference with FDR, Stalin, and Churchill. Later, when the 9th Infantry Division fought across Tunisia, ultimately defeating Rommel’s Africa Corps at Bizerte in May of ‘43, they were still there.

In August of 1943, when he was severely wounded in Sicily and handcarried by stretcher out of the mountains, the tags were used to identify him when he arrived at the aid station. When they couldn’t operate on him there and evacuated him to a full hospital, the tags were again used to identify him.

The war was over for Dad, although he was in the Army for another two years in both North Africa and the United States. Only after August of 1945, with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was he mustered out of the service. At the age of 22, he would have finally taken these dog tags off, five years after he first put them on.

I was thinking about his history as I looked at the dog tags, and an idea came to me. When I was a youngster, I was always a bit jealous of the Catholic kids with their Patron Saint medallions – their Saint Christophers, Saint Michaels, Saint Frances, and the like. I suppose I was privately thinking it gave them some kind of leg up on the rest of us. I decided to take one of the dog tags and put it on a necklace for myself – something of a Saint Bill, I suppose. My thinking was if the tags were with him throughout the war, even with his wounding maybe there was still a little magic left in them. A little protection, if you will.

I’ve worn the dog tag for a few days now. I feel it on my chest and smile. Dad was no saint in real life, but he took care of me when I was young, was a mentor to me when I was older, and a friend to me always. I’ll take my chances with this Saint Bill Medallion.