Dog tag owner found, but mystery as to how tag beached
Above, Scozzafava awards Laffaire with a diving coin. Photo by Matt
In July 2024, Marie-Laure Laffaire was visiting Gasparilla Island from Paris, France. For years, she and her three children always went to 13th Street to swim ever since her grandfather, a great sailor, lived near Boca Grande. That summer, she was snorkeling when she came across a silver chain attached to an ovular identification tag with a black rubber bumper. The tag was stamped with the name, “SCHROEDER ROY C.,” above the numbers 35791266 T43.
After some research, Laffaire identified the tag as having belonged to the late Roy C. Schroeder. Indeed, in the National Military Archives, Schroeder’s identification number accesses his full military records. He was born in 1923 in Ohio and lived in Hamilton County. He enlisted on March 6, 1943, in the middle of World War II. The “T43” after his I.D. number indicates that Schroeder received a tetanus immunization in 1943. Laffaire recorded the find in her travel journal and held onto the tags until recently when Lee County Deputy Sheriff David Scozzafava heard of the discovery. Scozzafava, who himself is a diver and has been a member of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Underwater Operations Team, took interest in the tags and made it his mission to find the veteran’s family.
After much googling and some Facebook messaging, Scozzafava got in touch with Schroeder’s granddaughter, Christie, who lives in Washington D.C. The family initially thought the message was a scam. They were shocked by the discovery and had no idea how the tags had ended up in Florida, let alone who had possession of them last.
“I’m talking to my dad trying to figure out how they could’ve ended up in Florida,” Christie wrote in her correspondence about the tags. “He doesn’t have any of his military records. The tags will be great to have.”
On January 2, 2026, Deputy Scozzafava met Laffaire back at 13th Street to pick up the tag in order to ship it to the family in D.C. Scozzafava had a surprise for Laffaire: a Lee County Dive team coin in exchange for the tag.
“I found it fitting to give Marie-Laure a coin from our dive team after finding the dog tags when snorkeling in our Lee County waters,” Scozzafava said.
Today, the tag is back with Roy Schroeder’s family, a small piece of a life and service restored decades later. How it traveled to the waters off Gasparilla Island remains unknown, but its return closes one chapter.
