LAKE CITY, SC (WMBF) – A quirky shop on the corner of East Main Street is known halfway around the world for a very special reason, thanks to one woman.
“I always write about the different providers here, so I wrote about Larry Morganti,” said Debra Lane.
Lane runs The Vault Vendor Market and features its vendors each month on social media. She highlighted Morganti for April to open Airfields.
“I got a message from a random person asking me if I know Larry Morganti and I’m wondering who that is. Why is he asking me?” Lane said.
That one Facebook message sparked an incredible homecoming that lasted 56 years and began when Morganti lost his dog tags during the Vietnam War.
A man working with metal detectors around the Da Nang Air Force Base came across one of the tags. He mailed it to a friend in Sweden who works to return lost tags to their owners. The man said it took more than two years to find Morganti.
“He wanted to return it to the owner if he found it, and that touched me deeply,” Lane said.
Lane took the name The Vault to heart and kept the secret to himself, surprising Morganti with the news at an after-hours event.
“It was quiet. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Lane said. “It was just a beautiful moment and Larry was just amazed that the dog tags he wore around his neck to identify himself were still here after all these years.”
Morganti received the label and a letter ten days later.
“It’s a little rough. It’s a little dirty. It’s got little bends and a few scratches. But overall it’s me,” Morganti said.
He then recounted his memories of the day in 1968 when he lost her.
“I was with a 311th Air Commando Squadron and we did medical evacuation missions. We did supply missions. That was probably either on the beach or on the base itself,” he said. “We were attacked a lot during that time. If a missile hit, we would just fall to the ground and my chain might have broken and the tag would come off.”
Morganti said that reuniting with his label brought back mixed feelings and memories.
“Good memories and a lot of bad memories. I’m happy. I’m very glad I got it back,” he said.
The artist then showed his intricate miniature paintings, the same works of art that connected his past with the present.
“This is one of those things that happens, and it should happen,” Lane said.
Like a new found friendship that began with a simple act of kindness.
“It takes a special person to do something like that and want to give back what you found to the right person,” Morganti said. “He’s a very good friend now. He really is.”
Morganti said he wanted to give the sign to his children as a reminder of where he had been and what he had been through.
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