Dog Tags

 

I’m not sure what brought them to mind – hadn’t thought of them for years – but a couple of evenings ago, I asked Honey “Did you wear dog tags in elementary school?”

We were having a pleasant conversation on a totally different subject when the question popped into my head.  Her answer, by the way, was “Yes.”

In the early 50s after the Soviet Union got the bomb, American kids had and wore dog tags to identify them in case of a nuclear attack.  We also participated in bomb drills where we were instructed to huddle under our school desks, cover our heads and –as it was cynically described - “kiss our asses goodbye.”

In doing a little research since our conversation, I was surprised to learn that the dog tag thing was never totally adopted nationwide.  It started in North Carolina, was picked up by the New York City schools where every kid from kindergarten through 4th grade was issued a set of tags.  The tags were soon de rigueur for every elementary school student in every major city from coast to coast.

Houston, with its port and petrochemical plants was considered a priority target, so it’s no surprise that Houston schools were quick to jump on board.

It might have been worse - the assistant superintendent of Milwaukee schools raised the possibility of even more bizarre tagging methods. Writing in a 1951 issue of the Journal of the National Education Association, assistant superintendent William M. Lamers laid out these options:

Tattooing is considered occasionally, but generally rejected because of its associations and impermanence in the case of severe burns ... Marking of clothing is more seriously regarded [but] clothing can be destroyed... and is frequently interchanged. Fingerprinting is... regarded by some as an infringement of privacy... Cards are easily worn out, stolen or destroyed.

The tags – we were issued two, but only wore one – had our name, parent’s name, home address, city and date of birth.  We both remember wearing them, but only in elementary school.  Neither of us has any idea what happened to our tags after that.