Dog tag of a three-war enlisted man

[jim46]

     Interesting dog tag. This is the first one I have ever seen with “ASN” stamped into it. It also has a seven-digit number beginning with “6” that indicates a post-World War I enlistment. I have seen M-1918 and M-1924 tags with numbering like this, but never a 1940-ish tag.

 

     Anyway, this is what I found out about Leroy Herod: He was born in Craig, Colorado on August 21, 1918. After completing grade school, but with no apparent not high schooling, he enlisted in the Army at the age of twenty on April 28, 1939.

 

     He left the Army in early 1945, and registered for the draft in Minneapolis on June 25, 1945. He explained that he had been unable to do so earlier, as required by law, but he had been in the Army already.

 

     He soon moved to the Houston/Galveston, area in Texas, where he re-enlisted on November 20, 1945. (Texas City, on the tag, is between Houston and Galveston.)

 

     He appears to have remained in the Army following service in Korea, in the medical branch, until March 31, 1960.

 

     Feeling the pull once again, he enlisted on May 20, 1966 to serve in Vietnam, separating for the final time on May 19, 1968 with the rank of sergeant first class.

 

     He then worked as a licensed practical nurse (LPN) in a VA hospital, and he died in Bossier City, Louisiana on March 11, 1994. He was seventy-five years old.