each and every fallen soldier.

In recent years, a near perfect record of
identifying service members who have died in the line of duty has been
achieved, a far cry from the 58% rate of identification that stood during
the Civil War. The dog tag has been and remains a major part of the reason
for this record.

At the time this article was written CPT Richard W. Wooley was Chief of Individual Training. Graves Registration Department (now the Mortuary Affairs Center), U.S. Army Quartermaster School, Fort Lee, Virginia.

The Infamous Dog-Tag

The publisher William Randolph Hearst was a fervent enemy of President Roosevelt and the New Deal. All the newspapers in the Hearst chain were expected to regularly publish unfavorable stories about New Deal programs. On the eve of the 1936 presidential election Hearst soughtto undermine support for Social Security with allegations that workers would be required to wear "dog-tags" with their Social Security number and would be forced to fill-out questionnaires probing for personal information. In fact, neither allegation was true. However, the "dog tag" story did have a basis in fact.

When considering ways to assign Social Security numbers, one proposal was to issue metal nameplates, not unlike military "dog-tags." Commissioner Altmeyer vetoed this idea as soon as he heard about it. This did not, however, stop the Hearst syndicate from reporting it as fact. During the early discussion of the metal nameplate idea, one company eager for this potential government business (the Addressograph Corp.) went so far as to prepare a sample I.D. tag in Commissioner Altmeyer's name. Altmeyer kept