(FLATHEAD VALLEY, MONT.)– A Montana man has a special connection to an American soldier he’s never met.

It’s a bond that he made through a souvenir to a Green Beret who’d been missing for almost 50 years — until now.

“When I was walking by the Wall, I saw a street vendor selling bracelets.”

Tom Dowling remembers that day in July of 2001 when he was in Washington, DC and bought a souvenir metal bracelet honoring a soldier who was missing in action since 1968.

“I saw the section where there was Montana and I picked up Alan’s,” Dowling recalled.

The bracelet honored Green Beret Sergeant first Class Alan Boyer of Missoula who was last seen on March 28, 1968. Tom brought it back to Montana and he thought about Boyer from time to time,

Boyer was on a reconnaissance mission and was last seen 15 miles inside Laos with two other Green Berets. They came under attack and called for an extraction. As Boyer started to climb into the rescue chopper the ladder broke and he didn’t make it inside.

The helicopter was under hostile fire and had to leave the area. When the chopper went back the three soldiers were gone. Alan Boyer was just 22 years old.

But this week as Tom was reading the paper he was stopped in his tracks; DNA testing allowed Boyer’s remains to be positively identified — and after 48 years He was coming home.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Tom said

The story of the souvenir bracelet finally had an ending.

Tom knows how much it means to Boyer’s his family — and to him, a silent supporter of a soldier he’d never met but honored just the same.

“Now I don’t know what to do with the bracelet. I want to give it back to the family, I will try to do that. I know he’ll be interned June 22nd, and I would love to find a way to be there for that so I can put this on his grave and tell him welcome home,” tom concluded.

Alan Boyer has a sister in Florida. Tom says she’ll reach out to her once things have settled down and he can share his story of his connection to her brother.

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