Author: Loren Smith

I lost my class ring in Vietnam in 1970. I was twenty years old. I had been stationed near a rice paddy outside Da Nang, and back then, I thought …

The ring was lost in Vietnam in 1970, but the story didn’t end there. It waited in a wooden box until someone young enough to be his grandson decided that unfinished stories deserved an ending. Read More

I lost my class ring in Vietnam in 1970. I was twenty years old. I had been stationed near a rice paddy outside Da Nang, and back then, I thought …

Sometimes an object isn’t valuable because of what it’s made of. It’s valuable because of everything it survived—and everyone who cared enough to keep it safe. Read More

I lost my class ring in Vietnam in 1970. I was twenty years old. I had been stationed near a rice paddy outside Da Nang, and back then, I thought …

His grandfather had found the ring in the mud and imagined a young American soldier searching for it. Decades later, his grandson finally discovered who that young man had been. Read More

I lost my class ring in Vietnam in 1970. I was twenty years old. I had been stationed near a rice paddy outside Da Nang, and back then, I thought …

The ring carried the initials of a twenty-year-old soldier, but the story it carried belonged to two families, two countries, and two generations who refused to let war have the final word. Read More

I lost my class ring in Vietnam in 1970. I was twenty years old. I had been stationed near a rice paddy outside Da Nang, and back then, I thought …

He never told his family about losing the ring because compared with everything else he lost in Vietnam, it seemed insignificant. He later realized that sometimes the smallest objects can carry the biggest memories. Read More

I lost my class ring in Vietnam in 1970. I was twenty years old. I had been stationed near a rice paddy outside Da Nang, and back then, I thought …

The farmer could have sold the ring or thrown it away. Instead, he kept it for fifty-four years because he believed the person who lost it deserved the chance to see it again. Read More

I lost my class ring in Vietnam in 1970. I was twenty years old. I had been stationed near a rice paddy outside Da Nang, and back then, I thought …

Imagine losing something at twenty and getting it back at seventy-four. For him, the ring wasn’t just jewelry anymore—it was a physical connection to the young man he used to be. Read More

I lost my class ring in Vietnam in 1970. I was twenty years old. I had been stationed near a rice paddy outside Da Nang, and back then, I thought …

He thought the ring had disappeared forever in the mud of a Vietnamese rice paddy. He never imagined that a local farmer had found it the very next morning and kept it safe for the person who lost it. Read More

I lost my class ring in Vietnam in 1970. I was twenty years old. I had been stationed near a rice paddy outside Da Nang, and back then, I thought …

Fifty-four years after losing his ring, a seventy-four-year-old veteran opened his door and came face-to-face with a piece of his twenty-year-old self. Read More

I lost my class ring in Vietnam in 1970. I was twenty years old. I had been stationed near a rice paddy outside Da Nang, and back then, I thought …

The young Vietnamese man didn’t come looking for money or recognition. He came looking for a stranger because his grandfather had made him promise that the ring would someday find its way home. Read More