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Veteran’s dog tag found by treasure hunter, returned to late military member’s family

WAREHAM, Mass. — Richard Porter died three years ago at the age of 89, but a piece of the veteran has come back home thanks to a stranger’s walk on a Massachusetts beach.

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Dan Minkle, who is Porter’s grandson, was taken by surprise when he got a phone call that informed him that his grandfather’s long-lost dog tag was found at Little Harbor Beach in Buzzards Bay.

“He did frequent the beach a lot when he was a kid, when he was alive, so clearly (it) maybe fell out of his pocket, who knows? Just makes the mystery even ... we don’t know,” Minkle told Boston25News.

Porter, who served in the Air Force during the Korean War, was a science teacher for more than 30 years.

He was known in his community as the “Thermometer Man” with the world’s largest thermometer collection - about 5,000 - that he kept in a museum in Onset, Massachusetts. He and his penchant for the temperature gauges were featured by the Guinness Book of World Records.

“We laugh, too, because he was always trying to get himself in the media, in the paper to promote his museum, so it is like here he is getting his five minutes of fame again,” Minkle told Boston25News.

Minkle will share the tag with other family members before he hangs them in his truck, Boston25News reported.