It was just a piece of metal lying on the ground.

If Diane Glazier hadn't been walking by on just that day, it might be buried still. The wind might have covered it with a layer of dust, which might have hardened to dirt. It could have stayed undiscovered for another 66 years.

But on Sept. 24, Glazier went to the site of the Wyoming Veterans' Memorial Museum for the first time. She is a field appraiser for the Natrona County Assessor's Office and was measuring county property near Allen Road, next to the pipe yard at Casper-Natrona County International Airport.

And Glazier glanced down.

She saw a dog tag lying in the dirt in front of her shoe.

She read the name and the date: L.D. Peterson, T43.

***

On Sept. 1, 1942, the Casper Army Air Base opened for business on the future site of the airport. It had 400 buildings and four world-class runways, big enough to land the largest airplanes in the world. The space shuttle could land on one if it had to, said John Goss, director of the Wyoming Veterans' Memorial Museum.

In its heyday, 3,000 people staffed the base. It was home to the 331st Combat Crew Training School, an ad hoc, heavy bomb group which trained on B17s and B24s. The base also housed the 211th Air Base Unit, a full contingent of Women's Army Corps, the 377th African-American squadron and others.

Despite conventional wisdom, Casper was a good place to train pilots. The mountain and the wind made flying tough. If pilots could fly here, the Army figured, they could fly anywhere.

But perhaps the Army was too smart for its own good. Goss knows of at least 120 men lost and 67 plane crashes on the base.

Today, nearly 100 buildings remain. The airport still uses two of the original runways. The Wyoming Veterans' Memorial Museum is located in the old Servicemen's Club where enlisted men went for a soda, a shake or a hamburger. It is dedicated to all veterans, from all wars and branches of service, from all demographics.

Most of the museum's artifacts have been donated by families of military men and women who lived or served in the state. The museum collects and displays them. But its mission is to tell the stories behind the artifacts.

***

Museum curator Eric Wimmer solves puzzles.

In college, he worked in the Visual Resource Center at Denver University. Someone would hand him a photo slide of a random piece of artwork, and it was his job to find the work's title, artist, country and date of origin.

He loved finding where things came from.

Sept. 24, the day Glazier brought in the dog tag, was Wimmer's day off. Goss called him at home: "Have I got news for you."

Wimmer had rarely been more excited to come to work.

The tag's inscription was still clear:

L.D. PETERSON

39531283, T43

MRS. L.D. PETERSON

344 W HILLSDALE

INGLEWOOD, CAL

Mrs. L.D. Peterson, according to Army dog-tag protocol, would have been the soldier's next of kin.

Wimmer and Goss went to look at the spot Glazier found the tag. It was clear that a tractor or some other machine had recently turned the dirt there, to make a small road, perhaps, or clear away snow. It exposed debris hidden for decades just under the ground -- the dog tag and who knows what else.

It could have just as easily been missed, and nobody would have known the difference.

But stories matter, Wimmer believes.

"I can find out information -- the who, what, where, when -- and I can type it up on paper and have people read it and learn the cold, hard facts," he said. "But something like this, this little dog tag, can bring so much happiness to a family."

Wimmer entered the tag's serial number in the National Archives database, and a LaThayne D. Peterson popped up almost immediately.

Wimmer had a name. A date, T43 -- the year Peterson got his tetanus shot. Random facts about a man's life -- born in 1921 in Rexburg, Idaho; enlisted in the Army as a private on Aug. 17, 1942, in Los Angeles.

Every fact uncovered more questions: What did Peterson do here? Did he go to war? Was he killed there, or did he come home, get married, have children?

Wimmer kept digging. He wanted to find LaThayne Peterson -- or at least his next of kin.

***

People who weren't alive then tend to think of World War II history in black and white, just as they see in photographs and film footage.

In fact, Peterson's service at the Casper Army Air Base was in black and white. The barracks were covered in black tarp paper, surrounded by white picket fences.

Peterson's tag was found in the warehouse district, a restricted area, suggesting Peterson had special access.

Online, Wimmer found an obituary for LaThayne D. Peterson. He died Sept. 19, 2002, on the eve of his 81st birthday. He was survived by two daughters, the obituary said. One in California, one in Nebraska.

Wimmer focused on Nebraska. That daughter's name, Tracey Asplund, was less common than her sister's, Stephanie Harper.

Wimmer looked through Nebraska phone directories. Nothing. He tried Internet searches. Dead end.

Then it hit him -- an "a ha" moment, he calls it now.

Facebook.

Well, it was worth a shot, anyway. Wimmer searched "Tracey Peterson Asplund" from his personal Facebook account and waited to see what would pop up.

"You've got to be kidding me," he said.

***

Tracey Asplund, of Mayer, Minn., is the fourth generation in her family to serve the military. Her great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, her grandfather fought in World War I, her father served in World War II, and she served in the Air Force. One of her two daughters married an Air Force man.

She grew up hearing World War II stories from her mom and dad, so she eagerly responded to Wimmer's Facebook message.

"Dear Mr. Wimmer. Yes, that is my father."

Immediately, Asplund started filling in the holes: Staff Sgt. LaThayne D. Peterson was a B17 radio instructor. Before he died, he had written Asplund a letter detailing his military history. He mentioned a town called Casper.

He'd come to the air base as part of a flight crew. He stayed stateside during the war, teaching other recruits. The rest of his flight crew went to war as replacements. All but two died.

***

LaThayne Peterson, steady of hand, drew a thin, black line down the back of each of his wife's calves.

His daughter, Stephanie Harper, was just a small girl watching her parents get ready for a night on the town. But it's one of her fondest memories.

The line her dad drew made it look like her mother was wearing nylons, even though they had no money for them.

"No one had anything, not a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of. But it was just a nice time. A rough time, but a nice time to be in America," said Harper, who now lives in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

She remembers that her mother always picked up hitchhiking soldiers in those days, and her parents fed everyone who needed a meal.

Peterson grew up Inglewood, Calif., and married his high school sweetheart, Arline, on March 13, 1943. He served in the Army for 44 months, teaching on bases in Kearney, Neb., Sioux City, Iowa, Spokane, Wash., and Casper. Arline moved with him. During one stop, she worked as a bank teller, rolling between the windows on skates.

After the war, Peterson worked for McDonald Douglas, an American aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor. He quit after a few years to study art. He designed product packaging for carrots, U-No candy bars and some Disney products.

Later, he became a freelance artist and had his own studio. Asplund still thinks of her father cleaning his brushes whenever she smells turpentine.

"He had a wonderfully dry sense of humor. He was quite the thinker and very introspective. Being an artist, I think that comes with the territory," she said.

"And he was quite the genius, really, and very much a gentleman."

She and her dad used to take long evening walks together. They'd talk about anything and everything. He loved the wide-open country.

Asplund is 10 years younger than Harper, her sister. Each has her own history with their parents. They get together now to exchange stories.

Did you know that Dad hopped bases with Jimmy Stewart? Harper might ask. Stewart was a pilot and sometimes shuttled soldiers between bases. Peterson got to chat with him a couple of times, and he commented about what a nice, common guy he was.

Peterson's claim to fame might be his Maidens calendars, nude pinups he painted in the mid 1960s. They depicted everyday women with bodies past their prime. "A portfolio of selected girls from down your street and up your alley," the covers read. You can still find a few for sale on the Internet or from antique dealers.

Peterson loved hunting, camping, fishing and everything about the West.

Sometimes, he couldn't sit still.

One night, watching late-night television with her father, Harper remembers him standing up.

Come on, he told her. Help me move this buffet. I can't stand this wall anymore.

So he painted three ceiling-to-floor, salmon-colored diamonds. He was in the middle of it when his wife walked in: Oh, God, what is he doing?

Trust me, he said. You'll love them.

***

His dog tag was just a piece of metal lying on the ground. Diana Glazier happened to look down, pick it up.

Of all the materials at the site of the Casper Army Air Base, all the remnants of an era long gone, this dog tag is in a class all its own. The other stuff -- bed springs, ammunition, a fork -- belongs to the site, to the museum. The dog tag belongs with the family.

"Think of what they were used for," Goss said.

"One went with the commander and one went with the body when the soldier was killed. The soldiers never took them off. In the shower or in war, the dog tag was there."

On Tuesday, Wimmer and Goss put the tag in the mail. They ensured that it would follow a precise and trackable chain of custody, from their hands to Asplund's. She'll get it when she returns from visiting her daughter in Salt Lake City.

She plans to display it in a shadow box with the letter her dad wrote detailing his military service. She will do the same with another set of her father's tags and give them to her daughters.

It would have been a prized artifact for the museum, invaluable in telling the story of the Casper Army Air Base. But Goss and Wimmer never considered keeping it.

You never consider the monetary value when you find a dog tag, Goss said.

"You always ask: Who was this person?"

This was who.

Telling veterans' stories

The mission of the Wyoming Veterans' Memorial Museum is to tell the stories of all veterans, from all wars and branches of service, from all demographics.

It is located next to the Casper-Natrona County International Airport at 3740 Jourgensen Ave.

It is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 1 to 4 p.m. on Sundays. Closed on Mondays.

For more information, call 472-1857.

On the web: Watch a video about the buried dog tag and its discovery at www.trib.com