Dog tag


Military identification tag, also informally known as dog tag, is a common term for a specific type of identification tag worn by military personnel. The tags' primary use is for the identification of casualties; they have information about the individual written on them, including identification and essential basic medical information such as blood type and history of inoculations. They may indicate a religious preference as well. The term arose and became popular because of the tags' resemblance to animal registration tags.

History

The earliest mention of an identification tag for soldiers comes in Polyaenus where the Spartans wrote their names on sticks tied to their left wrists. A type of dog tag was given to the Roman legionary at the moment of enrollment. The legionary "signaculum" was a lead disk with a leather string, worn around the neck, with the name of the recruit and the indication of the legion of which the recruit was part. This procedure, together with enrollment in the list of recruits, was made at the beginning of a four-month probatory period. The recruit obtained the military status only after the oath of allegiance at the end of "probatio", meaning that from a legal point of view the "signaculum" was given to a subject who was no longer a civilian, but not yet in the military.
In more recent times, dog tags were provided to Chinese soldiers as early as the mid-19th century. During the Taiping revolt, both the Imperialists and those Taiping rebels wearing a uniform wore wooden dog tags at the belt, bearing the soldier's name, age, birthplace, unit, and date of enlistment.

American Civil War

During the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865, some soldiers pinned paper notes with their name and home address to the backs of their coats. Other soldiers stenciled identification on their knapsacks or scratched it in the soft lead backing of their army belt buckles.
Manufacturers of identification badges recognized a market and began advertising in periodicals. Their pins were usually shaped to suggest a branch of service, and engraved with the soldier's name and unit.
Machine-stamped tags were also made of brass or lead with a hole and usually had an eagle or shield, and such phrases as "War for the Union" or "Liberty, Union, and Equality". The other side had the soldier's name and unit, and sometimes a list of battles in which he had participated.

Franco-Prussian War

On a volunteer basis Prussian soldiers had decided to wear identification tags in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. However, many rejected dog tags as a bad omen for their lives. So until eight months after the Battle of Königgrätz, with almost 8,900 Prussian casualties, only 429 of them could be identified.
With the formation of the North German Confederation in 1867 Prussian, military regulations became binding for the militaries of all North German member states via the Instruction on the Medical Corps Organisation of the Army Afield issued on 29 April 1869. Identification tags were to be handed out to each soldier before deployment afield.
The Prussian Army issued identification tags for its troops at the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. They were nicknamed Hundemarken and compared to a similar identification system instituted by the dog licence fee, adding tags to collars of those dogs whose owners paid the fee, in the Prussian capital city of Berlin at around the same time period.

World War I

The British Army introduced identity discs in place of identity cards in 1907, in the form of aluminium discs, typically made at regimental depots using machines similar to those common at fun fairs, the details being pressed into the thin metal one letter at a time.
Army Order 287 of September 1916 required the British Army provide all soldiers with two official tags, both made of vulcanised asbestos fibre carrying identical details, again impressed one character at a time.
The first tag, an octagonal green disc, was attached to a long cord around the neck. The second tag, a circular red disc, was threaded on a 6-inch cord suspended from the first tag. The first tag was intended to remain on the body for future identification, while the second tag could be taken to record the death.
British and Empire/Commonwealth forces were issued essentially identical identification discs of basic pattern during the Great War, Second World War and Korea, though official identity discs were frequently supplemented by private-purchase items such as identity bracelets, particularly favoured by sailors who believed the official discs were unlikely to survive long immersion in water.
The U.S. Army first authorized identification tags in War Department General Order No. 204, dated December 20, 1906, which essentially prescribes the Kennedy identification tag:
An aluminum identification tag, the size of a silver half dollar and of suitable thickness, stamped with the name, rank, company, regiment, or corps of the wearer, will be worn by each officer and enlisted man of the Army whenever the field kit is worn, the tag to be suspended from the neck, underneath the clothing, by a cord or thong passed through a small hole in the tag. It is prescribed as a part of the uniform and when not worn as directed herein will be habitually kept in the possession of the owner. The tag will be issued by the Quartermaster's Department gratuitously to enlisted men and at cost price to officers.

The U.S. Army changed regulations on July 6, 1916, so that all soldiers were issued two tags: one to stay with the body and the other to go to the person in charge of the burial for record-keeping purposes. In 1918, the U.S. Army adopted and allotted the service number system, and name and service numbers were ordered stamped on the identification tags.

Production

Dog tags are usually fabricated from a corrosion-resistant metal.
There is a recurring myth about the notch situated in one end of the dog tags issued to United States Army personnel during World War II, and up until the Korean War era. It was rumored that the notch's purpose was that, if a soldier found one of his comrades on the battlefield, he could take one tag to the commanding officer and stick the other between the teeth of the soldier to ensure that the tag would remain with the body and be identified.
In reality, the notch was used with the Model 70 Addressograph Hand Identification Imprinting Machine. American dogtags of the 1930s through 1980s were produced using a Graphotype machine, in which characters are debossed into metal plates. Some tags are still debossed, using earlier equipment, and some are embossed on computer-controlled equipment.
It appears instructions that would confirm the notch's mythical use were issued at least unofficially by the Graves Registration Service during the Vietnam War to Army troops headed overseas.

Usage

Military

Dog tags commonly contain two copies of the information, either in the form of a single tag that can be broken in half, or as two identical tags on the same chain.
This purposeful duplication allows one tag, or half-tag, to be collected from an individual's dead body for notification, while the duplicate remains with the corpse if the conditions of battle prevent it from being immediately recovered.
Although typically worn around the neck, dog tags have been worn on boot laces and wristbands etc. Dog tags are traditionally part of the makeshift battlefield memorials soldiers created for their fallen comrades. The casualty's rifle with bayonet affixed is stood vertically atop the empty boots, with the helmet over the rifle's stock. The dog tags hang from the rifle's handle or trigger guard.

Non-military

Some tags are used also by civilians to identify their wearers and:
  • specify them as having health problems that may suddenly incapacitate their wearers and render them incapable of providing treatment guidance
  • specify them as having health problems that may interact adversely with medical treatments, especially standard or "first-line" ones
  • provide in case of emergency contact information
  • state a religious, moral, or other objection to artificial resuscitation, if a first responder attempts to administer such treatment when the wearer is non-responsive and thus unable to warn against doing so. A DNR signed by a physician is still required in some states.
Military personnel in some jurisdictions may wear a supplementary medical information tag.

Variations by country

Austria

The Austrian Bundesheer used a single long, rectangular tag, with oval ends, stamped with blood group and Rh factor at the end, with ID number underneath. Two slots and a hole stamped beneath allows the tag to be broken in halves, and the long bottom portion has both the ID number and a series of holes which allows the tag to be inserted into a dosimeter. This has been replaced with a more conventional, wider and rounded rectangle which can still be halved, but lacks the dosimeter reading holes.

Australia

The Australian Defence Force issues soldiers two tags of different shapes, one octagonal and one circular, containing the following information:
  • AS
  • PMKeyS/Service number
  • First initial
  • Last name
  • Religious abbreviation
  • Blood group
The information is printed exactly the same on both discs. In the event of a casualty, the circular tag is removed from the body.

Belgium

identity tags are, like their Canadian and Norwegian contemporaries, designed to be broken in two in the case of a fatality; the lower half is returned to the Belgian Defence Staff, while the upper half remains on the body. The tags contain the following information, with slight variation depending on the linguistic region of the soldier:
  • Upper half:
  • * Belgisch Leger/''Armee Belge'' and Date of Birth in DD/MM/YYYY format.
  • * Surname with the addition of the first letter of given name.
  • * Service number and blood group with RH factor and optionally religion.
  • Lower half: identical.
  • Example:
  • * Belgisch Leger 01/01/1991
  • * Surname J
  • * 1234567 O+ KATH