--- title: Toothless Vietnam Vet Gets Free Set of Teeth VIDEO description: A Vietnam veteran who was toothless for around 40 years has received a new set of teeth for free from the dentist who founded Teeth Tomorrow. canonical: https://time.com/5206120/toothless-vietnam-vet-gets-free-teeth/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-03-28T15:24:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:51:29.007Z og:title: Vietnam Vet Gets Free Set of Teeth After 40 Years of Being Toothless og:description: The two-tour Air Force sergeant finally got his smile back og:url: https://time.com/5206120/toothless-vietnam-vet-gets-free-teeth/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0ba660f090be100a/69892b527cdbac8675d5c567/screen-shot-2018-03-19-at-5-05-54-pm.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Screen Shot 2018-03-19 at 5.05.54 PM og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Vietnam Vet Gets Free Set of Teeth After 40 Years of Being Toothless twitter:description: The two-tour Air Force sergeant finally got his smile back twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0ba660f090be100a/69892b527cdbac8675d5c567/screen-shot-2018-03-19-at-5-05-54-pm.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Vietnam Vet Gets Free Set of Teeth After 40 Years of Being Toothless  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Mar 28, 2018 3:24 PM UTC   by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Mar 28, 2018 3:24 PM UTC A [Vietnam veteran](http://time.com/vietnam-photos/) who was toothless for around 40 years has received a new [set of teeth](http://time.com/money/2792141/5-things-to-know-about-dental-implants/) for free from the dentist who founded [Teeth Tomorrow](http://teethtomorrow.com). After Lawrence “Smiley” Kleiman was left without most of his teeth due to a [calcium deficiency](http://time.com/4053338/calcium-supplements-bone-health/), the two-tour Air Force sergeant was gifted with $60,000 worth of permanent implant bridges by Dr. Michael Tischler and his team. “Here’s a man who gave service to our country,” Tischler said. “How do you say enough to vets that have given their lives for us, for our freedom? So it feels really good for all of us to be able to do this for him.” Smiley, for his part, was just looking forward to finally living up to his nickname. “I’d like to get my smile back. And it’s been many years since I’ve smiled without teeth,” he said leading up to the procedure. “It was just one of those things that I had two certain ways of smiling…You know I had a good side and a bad side. You don’t want to get on that one side.” Watch a video of Smiley’s journey above. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5206120/toothless-vietnam-vet-gets-free-teeth/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5206120/toothless-vietnam-vet-gets-free-teeth/"},"headline":"Vietnam Vet Gets Free Set of Teeth After 40 Years of Being Toothless","datePublished":"2018-03-28T15:24:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:51:29.007Z","description":"The two-tour Air Force sergeant finally got his smile back","url":"https://time.com/5206120/toothless-vietnam-vet-gets-free-teeth/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Human interest"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0ba660f090be100a/69892b527cdbac8675d5c567/screen-shot-2018-03-19-at-5-05-54-pm.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0ba660f090be100a/69892b527cdbac8675d5c567/screen-shot-2018-03-19-at-5-05-54-pm.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Screen Shot 2018-03-19 at 5.05.54 PM","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5206120/toothless-vietnam-vet-gets-free-teeth/","name":"Vietnam Vet Gets Free Set of Teeth After 40 Years of Being Toothless"}}]}] ```