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Staff Sgt. Frankie Buonanno, a crew chief with the 305th Air Mobility Wing Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, started metal detecting a year ago after his brother turned him onto the hobby. It wasn’t long before he started unearthing pieces of history and treasure, getting him hooked.
“My first really big exciting find was a silver ring,” Buonanno said. “It had flames on it, like something you’d buy on the board walk, but it was sterling silver. Then I found a wheat penny, and now I can’t find enough of them.”
Buonanno started to detect on the Dix-side of the joint base as soon as his time as a detectorist began. There is a century worth of Americana just below the former Camp Dix ground, and Buonanno is determined to rediscover it.
With his metal detector slung over his shoulder, he walks toward the parking lot to empty his sand-colored bag full of the day’s findings. The back of his Jeep is plastered with detectorists’ brands and stickers from his own sponsor, and he pops the trunk to reveal the bulk of his collection.
The inventory sits neatly organized in black-framed shadow boxes, each item pressed between a bed of cotton and its glass casing. Countless coins and collar discs, buttons, silver spoons and horse bridals, bullets and grenade fragments, even a key labeled “Whites” from the age of segregation – all items found on MDL.
He pulls forward another case, and its contents are immediately recognizable as a staple of military life: dog tags.
“My first one was a really iffy signal,” Buonanno said. “But I dug it anyway and there it was, my very first dog tag.”
Buonanno began finding tags from World War I, but was never able to get the information off them, he explained. Their time underground had taken its toll.
Eventually, he dug out a tag from the World War II, completely intact. After posting the image to his social media accounts, a man reached out to Buonanno and was able to give him all the information of the service member from the tag: Edward Saunders Jr.
Buonanno learned that Saunders Jr. was killed with two squad mates during the Battle of the Bulge.
“Having a piece of history like this is just amazing,” said Buonanno, turning the shining metal tag over in his hand. “What’s even more amazing though is being able to return them.”
In contact with historians and armed with modern archives, Buonanno is able to see full dossiers on the lives of these service members on paper – their birth, their death and their entire military service history.
“I always hope that they made it out alive, but for a while I had a long rash of killed-in-actions, Buonanno said. “Recently though, I’ve been able to get a lot more returns in.”
The phone call to the next of kin is always interesting, Buonanno said. Family members are almost always weary of a random man from New Jersey calling about their grandfather’s military service.
“They’re really hesitant at first,” Buonanno laughed. “But once I start reading off facts that I could only know if I actually had the dog tag, like their hometown and their mother’s name, it all makes sense, and they get really excited.”
Those moments of reconnecting a family with their service member’s history is the greatest reward of all for Buonanno, who feels personally connected to every dog tag he digs up.
“I remember when I joined the military, and I got issued my own dog tags,” Buonanno said, recalling everywhere he’s gone with his set. “It’s almost like a stamp in time of all the things I’ve done in the military, and that stamp is never going away.”
Unfortunately, not everything Buonanno finds has a complete back history; most times, Buonanno has to rely on historical facts and his imagination.
“We all have [service dress] inspections, and sometimes buttons fall off,” Buonanno said with a grin. “For all the buttons I find, you just have to imagine how many butt-chewing’s came with those lost buttons.”
The rain begins to fall more steadily across the open parade field as he pulls his rain hood over his head, and straps his detector back over his arm. Under the watchful eye of the Ultimate Weapon, he sweeps the coil gently over the wet blades of grass, determined to tell the story of what lies beneath them.
The ability to connect with these pieces of military history and these sentimental personal items is what fuels Buonanno’s passion as a detectorist. For him, it’s never about making money but preserving the history behind each item.
“You find these things and you understand at face value what its worth,” said Buonanno. “Sure everything has a dollar value, but it means a little bit more when you get this deep into it.”
| Date Taken: | 11.28.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 01.09.2017 11:52 |
| Story ID: | 219655 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, NJ, US |
| Web Views: | 75 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Precious Metals, by Lauren Russell, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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