![]() ![]() 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. “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 tab. Army first authorized issuing an ID Tag during WWI, around December of 1906. The British Army were issuing tags of fibre from the start of WWI, a style used by their forces in Canada and New Zealand through WWII and the Korean War. As the use of such ID systems spread to other military’s, the nickname went with them. The Army issued tags were soon nicknamed Hundermarken (the German equivalent of “dog tags”) because of the comparison to a similar identification system used for dogs in Berlin at about the same time. The Prussian Army seems to be the first to use military issued tags, during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, and this is where the nickname of Dog Tag also seems to come from. ![]() Manufacturers of ID products capitalized on this and soon developed various products that could be purchased and used by soldiers. The idea of being able to be identified after falling in battle has it’s modern beginnings with the American Civil War where soldiers used a variety of methods, from pinning notes with their names and addresses to the backs of their coats to etching that information in to the back of their issued belt buckles. These ID tags come to signify something very personal for the soldier, and unfortunately all too often for the family a soldier may leave behind. If a soldier is going to deploy, they are the first ones that need to have the new ID tags,” he said in the Army release.The set of Dog Tags has become a ubiquitous symbol associated with military service, the metal tags, hanging from chains around a soldier’s neck – or often hung as part of a make-shift memorial. “We are focusing first on the personnel who are going to deploy. Klemowski said the change would not be immediate for all soldiers. The tags “bring comfort and help calm the fears of soldiers facing death,” the Library of Congress tribute says, allowing them to know they would not be forgotten or become an unknown casualty. By July 1916, the Army was issuing two of the tags to each soldier, one that would stay with the remains of those lost in battle and one that would go to the burial unit, according to the Armed Forces History Museum. The tags became part of the Army field kit shortly before World War I. While the armed forces demand obedience and duty to a higher cause, dog tags, hanging under service members’ shirts and close to their chests, remind them of their individuality.” “The tag itself individualizes the human being who wears it, despite his or her role as a small part of a huge and faceless organization. “Dog tags are highly personal items to warriors of every service and to their families as well,” says a Library of Congress tribute to the dog tag produced in 2012. While identity theft may be among the most impersonal of crimes, the dog tags are anything but that. The change was mandated in 2007, but it has taken the military this long to replace the Social Security number with the 10-digit idea number through a number of systems, Klemowski said. Army Human Resources Command, said in an Army press release. The only thing missing is their birth date and you can usually get that by Googling a person,” Michael Klemowski, Soldiers Programs Branch chief, U.S. “If you find a pair of lost ID tags you can pretty much do anything with that person’s identity because you now have their blood type, their religion, you have their social, and you have their name. On the new dog tags, the service member’s Social Security number will be replaced with a randomly-generated, 10-digit Department of Defense identification number. Army is making changes to a century-old piece of hardware, dog tags, the identification implements that hang around each soldier’s neck.įor a low-tech thing like the aluminum dog tag, the reason for the change is decidedly high-tech, the threat of identity theft. ![]()
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