Dog Tags

Genre and Sub Genre: Material Lore

Language: English

Country where Item is from: United States of America

Informant Data: Originally from Bay Area, California, Jonathan Kong is a Dartmouth student veteran, ’18, and studies Economics. He served 6 years in the United States Navy assigned as a Combat Corpsman with Marine Corps Infantry. He has deployed three times and has conducted combat operations in Sangin, Afghanistan of Helmand Province. He has billets as an Assistant Leading Petty Officer, Senior Line Corpsman, Battalion Training Petty Officer, and Combat Trauma Management Instructor. He was awarded the Silver Star Medal for heroic actions against the enemy and risking one’s own life to save wounded Marines, as well as the Combat Action Ribbon, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Fleet Marine Force device, and Enlisted Surface Warfare device.

Social/ Cultural Context: Jonathan was interviewed in his home at an off-campus house for Dartmouth student veterans. He has been at Dartmouth for one years and was able to speak about various different topics. I briefly explained the focus of our collection and simply allowed him to speak freely about topics he chose.

Item: Military dog tags are one of the most iconic items of the military forces. They are small metal tablets that are imprinted with the service member’s crucial information: Name, Date of Birth, Religion, SSN, and blood type. Service members will generally wear two of these devices. One around their neck and one attached to their boots. The purpose of having them on their boots is to be able to identify the service member in the event of facial disfigurement.

Associated file: 

Transcript of Associated File:

Yea we pretty much all wear dog tags. It’s actually required when you’re in the military; part of your uniform. We wear one around our neck and one on our boots. The one on the boot is just in case you get blown up, shot, or whatever in the face. Basically if your face gets fucked up, you can still be identified by the tag on your boots if the one around your neck is missing ‘cause you got blown the fuck up and half your body is missing.

Informant’s Comments: I still wear my dog tags. It’s sort of my memorabilia.

Collector’s Comments: Informant showed me his dog tags but I did not take a picture due to sensitive information printed on it.

Collector’s Name: Cole Cable

Tags/Keywords: Material Lore