LOS ANGELES- Sometime at the end of this month, Los Angeles police officer Reginald L. Gay, 56, will receive another reminder of his two tours of duty as an Army infantryman during the Vietnam War.

The first reminder is a silver bracelet Gay wears on his right wrist given to him by a fellow veteran he met during a 1985 parade in downtown Los Angeles.

And all he knows about the man whose name is on the bracelet- Sgt. James M. Ray, a prisoner of war killed in 1968 - is that they both served in the same infantry division.

Gay said the bracelet serves as a reminder of the friendship that he forged while fighting in the Vietnam War.

"As far as caring for somebody," ha said, " I haven't cared for somebody as much as I cared for the people in combat with.'

The second reminder of his Vietnam stint will come sometime next week when Gay receives his military identification tag or "dog tag" usually given to a soldier's next of kin.

Gay said that he had lost them somehow during the last year of his second tour of duty in Vietnam, which ended Dec. 22, 1968. "there are certain things that you try to hold on to (during combat): your dog tags, your weapon and pictures of Mom- stuff like that."

Gay will receive his lost dog tag from an unlikely source: the father of an Illinois state senator.

In July 2001, the parents of Illinois state senator Peter Roskam were in Vietnam on business.

Roskam's mother, Martha, was shopping for inexpensive gold jewelry or old coins in Ho Chi Minh City when she spotted a basket of old Vietnamese coins. On top of those coins were some dog tags - dented, weathered and rusted.

"I picked them up and just looked at them. I felt so sad," Roskam said.

She left the dog tags with the vendor, went back to the hotel and told her husband, V.R. "Swede" Roskam about her discovery. Roskam, a veteran of the Korean War, urged her to go back and pay whatever she had to pay to get them. The next day Martha Roskam paid $20 for all 37 tags.

The vendor's daughter said the tags, containing personal information such as blood type and religion as well as names and military numbers, came from the highlands of central Vietnam, an area where Gay said he might have shielded himself from gunfire - and where he might have lost his dog tags.

Gay recalls that he and some friends were in what they believe to be a secure area along a Vietnamese river just relaxing and drinking beer.

" And in that instant, there was a rocket attack," he said. " Some of us tried to make it back to the bunker and some of us just said "Hey, we can't make it. ' So there was a ditch and we jumped in that ditch. "The last round (of gunfire) hit about six or eight feet from the ditch."

A former high school sprinter from Georgia. Gay was able to dodge gunfire during his two tours of service in the Vietnam War except for one occasion when a piece of hot shrapnel ripped into his side during combat.

The Roskams returned home to Illinois and handed the 37 identification tags to their son, Illinois state Sen. Peter Roskam.

Archives that keeps records of servicemen who are deceased, discharged or retired.

Although it has been three decades since the United States ended its involvement in Vietnam, that distant volume is hardly ancient history, state Sen. Roskam said. "

The 58,226 names on the 493-foot black marble memorial in Washington, DC. are a constant reminder of the ongoing agony associated with that conflict," he said.

It was at the record center where the 37 tags were authenticated, he said.

"I think, it's important that we, as Americans, honor these people that served us. Vietnam veterans many times came back and didn't receive the type of honor they should have," Roskam said.

" This is a matter of doing the right thing. We're going to do our best to get to the bottom of this," he said.

Roskams best included hiring a private investigator who has so far tracked down the next of kin for two deceased servicemen and Gay to Hawthorne addresses.

"It's really amazing after all of these years," said Gay's wife, Jackie. Gay said that as an 18 year-old in the late-1960's he and his cousin initially came to California from Georgia just to visit.

"As we visited, we decided to not go back to school (in Georgia)," he said. "We were just going to have a nice time in California - which we did."

Before playing basketball on " pretty much every court in Los Angeles," Gay found employment as a proofreader in the advertising department at May Company.

It was during that time when he received his draft notice.

" I knew (the Vietnam War) was going on, but it wasn't one of those things where you turn on the TV on and follow it," he said. " When I got the (draft notice) it was like, "Whoa, start paying attention to what's going on now."

Gay said that he has plenty of horror stories to tell about two tours of duty in the Army. He refuses to disclose any. He did comment on how the Vietnam War changed his personality.

He said he had grown to become easily agitated and could not stand to be around large groups of people. "When I came back, I was kind of to myself," he said. "I wasn't accustomed to what was going on around me. Usually, in Vietnam, I was surrounded by rice patties or around jungles."

Gay's wife said she also noticed a change in him.

"His demeanor had changed," she said. "He was a lot different that what I had known. (He) was just different after the war."

So from 1972 to about 1976 and while an MTA bus driver, he signed up at the V.A. Hospital for psychiatric therapy sessions.

He worked for the MTA for about eight years before joining the Los Angeles Police Department where the father of two now is a 19-year veteran on the force and a senior lead officer at the Newton station.

"I'm a pretty nice guy now because I got some help from the V.A. I've learned to control my anger," Gay said. "there's an old saying: If you want help, then you seek help.