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  #11  
Old 06-22-2005, 03:23 AM
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During the Civil War, before the Union Army issued ID tags, the soldiers would pin a piece of paper with their name on it to the inside of their coats to that their families could disinter their bodies for burial at home.
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  #12  
Old 06-22-2005, 04:41 AM
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Didn't hear about putting one in your boot until Mel Gibson said to do it.
But it sound like a ok Idea, I guess.
Never did it.

Ron
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  #13  
Old 06-22-2005, 10:36 AM
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Default Lamar Plain

My battalion, 1/46 Inf, Americal, started lacing in a dog tag in the boot when we were op-con to the 101st during operation Lamar Plain. We were told the 101st did it. It made sense. We recovered 12 bodies that were left to the elements for eight days in May 1969.

Some men don't like wearing things around their neck and not all the bodies had dog tags for ready identification in the field. They were all eventually I.D'd at Graves through dental records anyway. But in the field, I was charged with putting Field Medical Tags on each bag and some wound up marked "UNK." because there were no dog tags or other ID on them.

The enemy had rifled everyone's pockets so there were no wallets with IDs in them. Tags in the boots would have helped, though I assume Graves would have done the process of matching dental records anyway for positive ID. The bodies were decomposed beyond all recognition.
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Old 06-22-2005, 10:44 AM
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They taught us to insert the dog tag into the roof of the mouth by kicking the jaw shut.


Other battlefield markings:

When hit by chemical weapons and casualties are immobile you would mark the time of atropine injections on the forehead and also pierce the shirt collar with the injector, bending the needle to keep it in place.
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Old 06-23-2005, 06:14 AM
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Default Kicking dogtags into teeth

If you'd have done it to anyone I knew and liked I may have gutshot you just to see the look on your face.
Little things mean a lot to me sometimes, like showing respect for heroes.
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Old 06-23-2005, 06:30 AM
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I agree James, it sounded like a bad idea and I seriously doubt anyone ever did it. I know I would not have. Might have just been part of the psych out in basic like showing the movie Platoon or telling us that if a war started we would all be re-classed as Infantry with no further training and shipped immediately overseas. It is interesting to note that none of our DI were Vietnam veterans so they actually had no idea what really happened in a cz outside of book and hearsay training
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Old 06-23-2005, 12:47 PM
MontanaKid MontanaKid is offline
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Default Never heard of kick in teeth or mouth

I'm not sure why one would even do it. If a body is going to be left to decompose, why would one want to reach inside a mouth of a decomposing body to recover a dog tag from what's left of the soft pallet? It's much easier to take off the neck chain, or from a boot. Were they afraid the enemy would steal it"?

Never heard of it actually being done. It seems if the objective is to hide it in the mouth, why not just put it in there? I see no need of kicking a jaw shut to force it up the soft palate, and if they are talking about the hard palate, forget it, that piece of tin is not going to break through the bone.
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Old 06-23-2005, 01:02 PM
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The kicking of a jaw with the dog tags inserted is a myth ........ see Riggers post earlier in this thread.
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Old 06-23-2005, 06:30 PM
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Always kept mine either taped or covered in plastic covers so we wouldn't make noise on patrol. Although we we're told you should wear one on a boot it could still make noise if it wasn't taped or covered so we just wore them around our necks. Besides it didn't do any good if the boot that had the tag was on the foot that stepped on the BT.

Doc Urb
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