One unexpected and surprising finding, however, was that 15 of the 1,444 dog tags may belong to Americans killed in action. A check of the mortuary files maintained at JPAC revealed that eight of those 15 individuals were received at the Da Nang and Tan Son Nhut mortuaries missing one or both of their dog tags. For comparison, a random records search of 325 American service members who died in Vietnam and Laos between 1969 and 1971 revealed that 56 percent of them (182 people) were received at the mortuaries without any dog tags, 19 percent (61) had only one dog tag, 23 percent (75) had two, and three individuals had three dog tags. Perhaps a buddy, one of the graves records personnel at the collection point, or even the enemy, removed the dog tags after the soldiers were dead but before they were received at one of the two mortuaries in-country. Regardless, the dog tags for all 15 of the above-mentioned service members ended up on the streets of Hue City more than 30 years after being lost.

Trying to unravel the mystery of the dog tags and determining whether a dog tag is genuine or fake represent a necessary, albeit complicated and difficult, step in understanding how and why service members became separated from their dog tags. While many tags were dropped, forgotten, misplaced, given away as souvenirs or turned in while attached to boots, many others were ‘lost’ in the heat of battle.

The purpose of the project is fourfold. The original and primary goal is to reunite lost dog tags with their owners. The second is to develop criteria for distinguishing genuine dog tags from fakes. The third is to understand the circumstances of when, where, why and how dog tags became separated from their owners by talking to the service members who lost them. The fourth is to trace the path of dog tags from the time they left their American owners until they ended up on the streets of Vietnam. Regardless of the circumstances of loss, each dog tag has a history — whether it is genuine or fake — and each carries information that we hope may lead to identification of a missing service member.

The ultimate goal of this research, however, is to understand how dog tags can be used to help locate crash sites and unmarked graves in a land of jungles, mountains, rivers and rice fields. These rectangular pieces of metal, worn close to the hearts of service members in battle, carry not only information intended for identification after death, but also, as we’re learning, unintentional information about how they were lost, where they were found and the hands that found them.Before we undertook this research, who would ever have thought that a few subtle features of a dog tag, such as being bent, burnt or covered with soil, could carry such a wealth of information about the circumstances surrounding the loss or death of a service member? What we do know is that in some cases dog tags, like silent witnesses, may be the only available source for locating missing service members and, therefore, deserve attention. Although we don’t claim to have all of the answers when it comes to dog tags, we’re certainly trying and, as a result, are getting a little closer to the truth. So, what may have begun as souvenir collecting for some and an act of good faith and Samaritanism for others may someday help investigators locate, recover and identify some of our MIAs…even if we only find one.

Robert W. Mann, Ph.D., is a deputy scientific director, Robert C. Maves is senior analyst and Thomas D. Holland, Ph.D., is scientific director of the JPAC-CIL. The authors wish to thank the men and women of the JPAC in Stony Beach, and the CIL for their dedication and continued efforts in both the laboratory and field. The authors also thank Richard Hites and Johnie E. Webb Jr. for their dedication and insightful thinking. Mr. and Mrs. Robert McMahon and Stacey Hansen deserve special thanks for their commitment and involvement in reuniting veterans with their lost dog tags. Thanks also to Professor Allen L. Johnson, Department of Chemistry at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for interpreting the composition of some dog tags, and Dr. Niels J. Zussblatt of the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis for helping to verify information on some of the dog tags. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect that of the JPAC, CIL, CILHI, JTF-FA, Stony Beach or other U.S. government personnel or organizations. For additional reading, see MIA: Accounting for the Missing in Southeast Asia, by Paul D. Mather.

This article was originally published in the August 2005 issue of Vietnam Magazine.

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