 A veteran gets his dog tags back 69 years after he lost them. Ninety-year-old Corporal Willie Wilkins was serving in the Army's quartermaster graves registration units in 1944 when he lost his tags in southern France. Ann Marie Crespo found the dog tags in 2001 while digging near an olive tree in her backyard. She thought the soldier was dead, but a neighbor urged her to try to find the tags owner. After nearly a decade of research, Crespo discovered Wilkins was alive and living in Newark.