combat troops were required to wear them. Navy didn't require dog tags until May 1917. Remember, Donald Rumsfeld’s famous words: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” Like all things military, it is likely the military figured out the need for two dog tags amidst operations. Why two dog tags? The first tag was to remain with the body, while the second was for burial service record keeping. Army amended its initial order and required a second disc. The tags were worn under the field uniform.Īccording to the Defense Department, in July 1916, the U.S. The half-dollar size tags were stamped with a soldier's name, rank, company and regiment or corps, and they were attached to a cord or chain that went around the neck. The tags included personal biographical information that could be used to identify a casualty. Pierce, an officer in charge of morgue operations in the Philippines, recommended the Army outfit all soldiers with the disks to identify those who were injured or killed. At the end of the Spanish American War, service members were issued identification tags in 1899 after U.S. military embraced better practices of casualty identification. For example, of the more than 17,000 troops buried in Vicksburg National Cemetery, nearly 13,000 graves are marked as unknown.Īfter the Civil War, the U.S. By the end of the Civil War, more than 40 percent of the Union Army’s dead were unidentified. Soldiers marked their clothing, pinned tags of paper and cloth onto their uniforms, used old coins or bits of metals to identify themselves, and some men carved their names into wood pieces strung around their necks. Defense Department supports the argument that dog tags, officially known as identification tags, came about during the Civil War because soldiers were afraid of being unidentified and buried in unmarked graves. Other researchers believe the practice of tagging military personnel started to take shape during the Civil War when soldiers wrote notes with their personal information on them so they could be identified if they became a casualty. Like most good military ideas, it is not surprising the Romans would be given credit for developing the dog tag. Some military historians believe the practice started with the Roman Empire. If there is one issued piece of equipment given to military personnel that is swirling with urban legend and myths, it is dog tags.
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