A long-lost lighter that was dug out of the sand at Jones Beach nearly six decades ago has finally been reunited with the family of the Vietnam veteran who owned it, The Post has learned.
The silver igniter etched with a map of Vietnam made the 3,000-mile journey over the weekend to Oregon, where Theresa Shipley and her son Andrew laid eyes on the relic her late husband Paul talked about so often.
“He wasn’t the kind of man to cry, but I think he would’ve shed a tear when he heard that he was getting his lighter back,” Theresa, 58, told The Post Monday about Paul, who died in 2003.
For decades, the lighter had been something of a mythological artifact in the Shipley household.
US Marines vet Paul frequently reminisced about the wartime object, and even enlisted the help of his wife to rifle through every inch of his belongings in their Salem home in hopes of finding it.