Any class ring is special, but a U.S. Naval Academy class ring is something only our country’s elite will have the right to wear.

David Lorenzo, Class of 1964, participated in numerous combat missions while serving in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. The veteran Marine Corps fighter pilot was even wearing his Naval Academy ring when his F-8 Crusader was hit by enemy fire, forcing him to eject over Laos in January 1968; He was rescued a few hours later by US forces.

He would eventually return to the United States and, about six years after graduating, while playing golf with his father in Pennsylvania, he lost the prized ring somewhere on the course.

“He survived the combat, but he couldn’t survive my golf game,” said Lorenzo, a robust, tough-looking 82-year-old.

Now, Lorenzo and that ring have been reunited thanks to a Pennsylvania man who found the ring this summer on the same golf course where Lorenzo lost the ring 54 years ago. Michael Zenert was near the fourth green at Uniontown Country Club near Pittsburgh when he found the ring in a patch of clay that had been exposed by recent rains.

“I saw this shiny thing and I thought it was a tab on a beer can,” said Zenert, 70. “I took it out so that no one would step on it and I saw that it was a ring.” He cleaned it and saw that it was a ring from the United States Naval Academy, class of 1964, with Lorenzo’s name engraved on the inside.

On Friday, Zenert returned the ring to Lorenzo at the National Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station Pensacola, where Lorenzo volunteers and also announces the Blue Angels’ Tuesday practices and Wednesday’s autograph sessions with the US Navy’s elite flight demonstration team

“Let’s see if it still fits,” Zenert said after presenting the ring to Lorenzo in front of family, friends and museum staff.

“I never thought I would see him again,” Lorenzo said. “It was very sad when I lost him and this means a lot.” Years later, Lorenzo’s wife, Cathy, bought him a new one, identical to the ring he lost. It’s in your hand now. But Lorenzo also tried to put on his old ring. It had been so long.

“Does it fit?” —Zenert asked.

“Very close,” Lorenzo said, raising his hand. “I can reach the first knuckle.”

He’s bigger now. Wiser and older too.

Mike Zenert, of Irwin, Pennsylvania, points out Dave Lorenzo’s Naval Academy ring worn by his wife Cathy Lorenzo at the National Naval Aviation Museum aboard NAS Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. David Lorenzo, a 1964 Naval Academy Graduate and former Marine F8 fighter pilot, lost his 1964 Naval Academy ring while playing golf in Pennsylvania more than 50 years ago in the early 1970s. Mike recently found it on that course golf, located Lorenzo and delivered it to him personally.
Gregg Pachkowski/Pensacola News Journal

“Back then I weighed 145 pounds soaking wet and had a 28-inch waist,” Lorenzo said. “That’s a difference of about 50 pounds, 10 inches” from today.

Zenert and his wife, Carol, live near Pittsburgh, but he was able to locate Lorenzo through the Internet after finding a podcast where Lorenzo talked about his military experiences.

“I knew I couldn’t mail this,” Zenert said of the ring. “I knew it had to be delivered personally.”

So, after a trip to Orlando to see their son, the couple drove to Pensacola, arriving Thursday night and meeting the Lorenzos Friday at the museum.

Zenert presented Lorenzo with the class ring in front of an F-8 Crusader on display, similar to the one Lorenzo flew in combat. The supersonic fighter aircraft is known as the “last of the gunslingers” because it was the last fighter aircraft with firearms as its primary weapon.

Soon, wearing a Santa hat he had brought to take Christmas photos at the museum, the grey-bearded Zenert was in the cockpit, with Lorenzo on the side of the plane showing him the features of the cockpit. Zenert’s face was covered in a Santa-sized smile.

“This is amazing,” he said. “I have always loved airplanes and this place is fantastic. “I think I’m overloaded, it’s that cool.”

Watching the two men talk from the cockpit were their wives, Cathy Lorenzo and Carol Zenert, and a host of museum officials and volunteers, including retired U.S. Navy Capt. Sterling Gilliam, director of the National Museum of Naval Aviation and retired US Navy Rear Admiral Kyle. Cozad, president and CEO of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. Also there was Debbie Naylor, an old friend of Lorenzo’s, a museum volunteer and a Delta Airlines flight attendant who has known him since Nixon’s first term.

Lorenzo went to fly for Delta after heroically serving in the Marine Corps for six years and the two met there. He retired from Delta in 2002.

“He’s just an absolutely amazing person; what he’s done and accomplished,” Naylor said. “He is very talented and knowledgeable. I used to call it “the Encyclopedia” because I just knew everything. Now I call him ‘Mr. Google’ because young people now don’t know what an encyclopedia is.”