In the Catholic religion, there’s a popular name one turns to, pronounces, pleads with, to see lost items be found and returned once again.

Saint Anthony of Padua — a canonized saint and old friar of the Franciscan Order — who earned this distinction when, according to the legend, he had a notebook of psalms stolen only to see the thief return it upon his prayer.

The “thief” of former United States Army Sergeant John Hill’s cherished identification bracelet (given to him by his mother) wasn’t a person — no individual took it from him back on June 7, 1944. Rather, it was an event that did.

D-Day. The invasion otherwise known as the Normandy landings in France. The largest seaborne invasion in human history.

The band has been missing ever since that fateful late spring day when, together with over 150,000 Allied troops, Hill courageously fought to defeat the Nazis and its fellow Axis powers.

Fast forward decades and decades to earlier this year, 2017.

This from the Seattle Times:

In February, Matthieu Delamontte found a bracelet with Hill’s name and serial number while using a metal detector in a field near Normandy. He tracked down the 93-year-old veteran with the help of a Syracuse librarian.

The two men recently met on Skype. Delamontte will be sending the bracelet to Hill soon.

The veteran resides in Syracuse, New York.