For more than a century, “Dog Tags” have also been worn by humans. Such military forms of identification have been around the time of the Civil War.
According to “History of the Dog Tag,” by Captain Richard W. Wooley, in 1863, the troops of Union General George Gordon Meade began writing “their names and unit designations on paper and pin[ning] them to their clothing.”
This, of course, was not a material of any lasting quality. Still, it was better than nothing.
A current estimate states that 42 percent of those who died in the Civil War were never identified. It wasn’t long until troops began creating ID tags out of wood, in any shape. One end had a hole notched in it and a string drawn through so it could be worn around the neck.
Pretty soon a metal type was introduced, with peddlers following troops and offering to sell them, with the soldiers’ names and their units. Or the soldiers, or their friends, or their relations, could order these “soldier’s pins” by mail, not made of any common metal, but of silver or gold. In retrospect, this may have made them valuable enough to be stolen.
After the Civil War ended, no one appears to have thought that continuing the ID tag idea was useful. Not until 1899, when Chaplain Charles Pierce, while creating the Quartermaster’s Office of Identification in the Philippines, recommended that an “identity disc” be created and included in combat field kits.
In 1913, such tags were made mandatory and became a necessary part of military wear. Beginning on July 6, 1916, a second tag was added to be worn with the first, on a rope or a chain.
By 1917, all soldiers going off to World War I were wearing the rust-proof aluminum discs on chains. It wasn’t until 1940, just prior to World War II, that the well-known rounded-end, oblong shape was created, and these stainless steel IDs, on flat-linked chains, came to be known as “dog tags.” Soldiers have been wearing these IDs ever since, with beaded chains,
Then, quite suddenly, the dog tags no longer became exclusively used by only the military, in the 1950s and 1960s. The era of atomic war was at hand, and, to supplement the “how to survive an atomic blast” films that look so pathetically ineffective today, school children were issued metal dog tags of their own, “just like the real soldiers wear.” This was an idea first dreamed up by Civil Defense authorities.
In the early 1950s, little Janice Foster of the Orchard Knob Elementary School in Dallas, Texas, received her dog tags from her teacher, and, like the rest of the class, was ordered to wear them constantly.
In 1953, at the Bright School in Chattanooga, Tenn., each student had to bring 25 cents for a tag, which had his or her name and address on them, next of kin, and, as options, the religious designation and blood type.
Apparently, little information was ever given to the students about why they suddenly had to wear these ID tags. It was just another school rule, for their own good. The true, unspoken reason was rarely discussed.
Illinois appears to have been a little slow in jumping on the dog tag bandwagon. It wasn’t until late 1962, which happened to coincide with the Cuban Missile Crisis, that forms were send home with Brookfield school children, asking for information to be stamped on fairly indestructible metal ID tags. These, however, were not made of aluminum, but of stainless steel.
The Brookfield Post 2868 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) was contacted by the nation’s Civil Defense organization, and this method of identifying school age children in the community was undertaken.
Nationwide, the now VFW-sponsored tagging program had taken two years to implement thus far, since Jan. 1961, according to the Jan. 30 issue of the Brookfield Enterprise newspaper.
In the Jan. 24, 1963 Suburban Life, Mildred Dobbins, of the Brookfield VFW Post’s auxiliary stated, “The Post wishes to stress the point of having children keep these tags on their person, as it will aid immeasurably in keeping them safe, and in case of emergency, will help get the proper medical attention quickly.”
Again, never mentioned in any newspaper article of the time was the true reason for the dog tags. The ongoing threat of nuclear war would, in any aftermath, have aided in identifying children’s bodies.
The Brookfield VFW Post had contacted PTA groups and also John Snyder, the village Civil Defense director, who arranged with schools to freely give students 2,250 identification tags, with either a beaded neck chain or a key chain. Many hours were spent beforehand, checking and double checking information submitted for them.
Mildred Dobbins further stated that “The states of Indiana and Georgia have tagged every child of school age. Other states are working hard at accomplishing the same goal.” The target date of completing local distribution was set for Feb. 7.
The Brookfield Citizen on that date ran a large photo on its front page, with the headline, “Brookfield VFW Distributes ‘Dog Tags’ to Local School Children As Part of Civil Defense Effort.”
Pictured together with children “being tagged” from St. Paul’s Lutheran School and Congress Park School, was Christopher Snyder, the Civil Defense director’s son from Hollywood School.
Each metal ID tag, produced by the Addressograph Company, bore a child’s name, next of kin, address, blood type if known, religion and known allergies. Students at St. Barbara’s School had a second tag, listing their church and something like, “If seriously injured, please call a priest.”
How about it? Do you, or your parents, still have their old school time dog tags? Or did you, or they, just toss them away, or lose track of them over time?
I still have my main one, with my father’s name listed as my next of kin, below mine. I remember the clink of the metal tags against each other back in the sixth grade and how it annoyed Sister Celestine. It annoyed the other teachers, too, so we were ordered to put them inside our shirts.
The boys liked them because they were military, and the Vietnam War hadn’t gotten its bad reputation yet. But, like the students in the 1950s, we were never told why we needed to wear them, just being told that they would help us if we were seriously hurt. A little metal piece of insurance. Little did we dream of their grim and gruesome purpose.
Cathy Colgrass Edwards, a longtime resident of Brookfield, was then attending Riverside-Brookfield High School.
“I do remember the idea of dog tags. Dog tags were cool! But I don’t remember having one when I was in RB.”
After corresponding with a few of her other friends from RB, she related to me that they had no recollection of them, either. So perhaps they were only given to grade school students.
After awhile, maybe even during that hot summer of 1963, children stopped wearing the ID tags, which were always sticking to clammy, salty skin. Girls probably found them going out of fashion. There were many prettier things to wear around their necks, after all.
As the threat of atomic war ebbed, the tags were put away in drawers, boxes or just plain thrown out, especially if the information on them was no longer applicable, such as when people moved.
Soldiers continued to wear their dog tags, and in the late 1960s, when the G.I. Joe dolls, excuse me, action figures, first came out, they had dog tags on them, too.
Aluminum dog tags for the military have never gone out of use, even in the present conflict in Iraq. But the concept of identification is progressing beyond the simple metallic tags.
According to dog tag historian, Capt. Richard Wooley, “The Department of the Army has developed and is currently testing a new tag, which will hold 80 percent of a soldier’s medical and dental data on a microchip. Known as the Individually Carried Record, it is not intended to replace the present tag, but rather to augment it as part of the ‘paperless battlefield’ concept.”
Furthermore, Wooley states that there is a “yellow TacMedCS being tested by the Marines [that] uses radio frequency technology, electronics, and global-positioning systems to pinpoint [the] wounded.”
Dog tagging students seems to have gone out of style 40 years ago, but today, thanks to the Internet, dog tags have become fashionable and useful personal statements.
Anyone can buy dog tag bottle openers, camouflage dog tags (I’ll bet they’re hard to find, if they get lost) and motion-activated lighted dog tags. Just the thing for today’s children to use when they’re playing tag in the dark. I suppose that, in a way, the idea of dog tags for children has now come full circle.