# Marine Dog Tags stuck between teeth **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 19, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731 "2012-07-19T15:53:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/41 "2012-07-24T05:53:01Z")
Yeah, our boots come with a special slot for dog tags - half a tag in each boot. Of course, in these days of DNA profiling, they’re probably redundant. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/42 "2012-07-24T12:29:04Z")
Re DNA profiling, it is, I think, a process far too time consuming–it is not like in the crime TV shows–for it to be feasible for Graves Registration (I think that’s what they call it in the US). ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/43 "2012-07-24T12:59:52Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Re DNA profiling, it is, I think, a process far too time consuming–it is not like in the crime TV shows–for it to be feasible for Graves Registration (I think that’s what they call it in the US). Then I wonder why the Army took my DNA sample around 1998 or so? Of course ID tags and cards are easier to use. Most of the time the remains will not be unknown. But DNA is certainly a tool that the military has used for a while now. [http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=41418](http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=41418) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/44 "2012-07-24T13:09:54Z")
Thanks. Ignorance fought. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/45 "2012-07-24T15:18:48Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Not a rumor. I never saw the need to do it but I know plenty of guys who had dog tags laced into their boots. It is a personal choice not an army policy. I concur with this. A lot of my buddies did this while in the Air Force. I never did, I had a meat-tag (dogtag info tattooed on your body). ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/46 "2012-07-24T15:31:07Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > I concur with this. A lot of my buddies did this while in the Air Force. I never did, I had a meat-tag (dogtag info tattooed on your body). Holy crap. I assume this was allowed…what data? [BTW, --and this _ **NOT** _ a comparison–in WW II the only German soldiers with ID tattoos were SS, which pointed them out to investigators.] ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/47 "2012-07-24T15:40:08Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Holy crap. I assume this was allowed…what data? > > [BTW, --and this _ **NOT** _ a comparison–in WW II the only German soldiers with ID tattoos were SS, which pointed them out to investigators.] I had name, religion, and NKA (no known allergies). I figured if I died the odds were very slim that I’d be in one piece, so why not? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/48 "2012-07-24T19:07:42Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Holy crap. I assume this was allowed…what data? > > [BTW, --and this _ **NOT** _ a comparison–in WW II the only German soldiers with ID tattoos were SS, which pointed them out to investigators.] I think that they just had their blood type tattooed on their armpit. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/49 "2012-07-24T20:41:09Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > I think that they just had their blood type tattooed on their armpit. Correct. > **[SS blood group tattoo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_blood_group_tattoo)** > > SS blood group tattoos (German: Blutgruppentätowierung) were worn by members of the Waffen-SS in Nazi Germany during World War II to identify the individual's blood type. After the war, the tattoo was taken to be prima facie evidence of being part of the Waffen-SS, leading to potential arrest and prosecution. > The SS blood group tattoo was applied, in theory, to all Waffen-SS members, except members of the British Free Corps. It was a small black ink tattoo located on the underside of the left ... Also confirmed by a neo-Nazi site in America, whose URL I will not print for obvious reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/50 "2016-07-30T18:08:24Z")
From a convo I had today with an AF vet: He told me the teeth thing was true, which I remembered – from this thread! – as being bullshit, so he might have been into bullshitting the next part, the reason for the bump: “You get a larger dog tag and a smaller one; the larger one stays with you and the smaller one is affixed to any limbs fingers, etc., that get blown off and must accompany you, for surgery if wounded or burial.” He was in Tactictical Air Control, which I do believe… ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/51 "2016-07-31T16:32:55Z")
This is arrant nonsense and I’ve been whooshed. I’m pissed at myself for embarrassing myself. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731/52 "2016-07-31T19:32:40Z")
Sometimes out of sheer boredom, we’d go to Personnel and tell them we needed new dog tags because we changed our religion. For a while I was a “Zen Baptist”, then I got into alliteration and became an “Existential Episcopalian”. But the original notch was for lining up the tag in an addressograph machine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-dog-tags-stuck-between-teeth/628731.md?page=2)