Dots between two military men who both trained at the Kearney Air Force base back in World War II were finally connected after decades. The family who put the pieces together described it as being "heavenly orchestrated."

“I was just digging and just happened to see something catch the sun just right, and I told the guy I was working with, 'hey stop for a second.' With the military background I have, I knew what it was,” said Will Gwin who found the dog tag.

It was engraved with the name Ralph E Rigaud.

Gwin said he found it while he was at work on the site that used to be the Kearney Air Base.

“I did a little research on my own to find out if it was real or just a souvenir someone lost,” said Gwin.

He found out it was in fact real, and he brought it to his mom, Val Gwin, who learned they had a connection; Ralph and her father were from the same place.

“We knew that our dad was from New York and was stationed at the Kearney Air Base during World War II for his training, and since the air base was where Will was surveying that day or had been out there, we wondered if there was a connection, if dad had known this particular airman,” said Val.

Val and her sister Lisa Atchison, coincidentally had a trip already planned to go to New York.

“We had our airline tickets and everything so we were already going and a month later, Willy found that,” said Atchison.

And they said they had even more reason to go as they had a dog tag to return back to Ralph’s family.

But Val said the connection didn't stop there as they continued to hunt for more clues about who Ralph was.

“Our dad had compiled volumes and volumes of information about World War II. One discovery led to another, and we found out they were at the airbase together, not necessarily that they knew each other,” said Val.

Shortly after that discovery, they got new information with help from the historical society in New York.

“Ralph got medals for a mission on Jan. 11, 1944 that he was on, and we about lost it because our dad was shot down on Jan. 11, 1944 in Germany so we knew they were on the same mission,” said Val.

After this finding, they were able to get in touch with the now rightful owner of the dog tag, Ralph’s stepson Frederick Doug Sinclair.

“I was just so amazed to think that everything they did, the ladies did there and I was so impressed that whatever they can find out, wonderful cause he was such a nice guy,” said Sinclair.

Val and Lisa then mailed the dog tag to Sinclair, so he could finally have a piece of his dad back at home.

“When I got it from the post office, I was so taken by it,” said Sinclair.

Through every connection, Atchison said it all felt "heavenly orchestrated."

“When this started falling together, every time a connection happened, we just got goosebumps and we’d look up and really felt that it was a God thing, we really feel it was a spiritual pulling together, we make jokes about the spirit of dad and the spirit of Ralph working with God to bring this all to a point,” said Atchison.

Two men, tied together through military service, their families now able to help give closure to Ralph’s life, dedicated to sacrifices for his country.

“We think it’s to give Ralph the honor maybe he didn’t get when he was young since he died, and people didn’t understand him so this was like, Ralph’s going to rest better,” said Val.