Silver Filigree Dog Tags by Lindsay Zike

Lindsay Zike, Collection of Service Dog Tags, Fine and Sterling Silver, 2015 (Private Collection). [Pin on Pinterest]

A simple piece of machine-pressed aluminum, nearly identical to millions of others. A practical solution to a grim problem; just before the turn of the last century it became apparent to the Quartermaster of Identification, Capt. Chaplain Charles C. Pierce, that the fighting in the Philippines had left the Army with too many unidentified fallen. His solution was to outfit each solider with an identity disk made of cheap pressed aluminum. A few years before the US entered the Great War the Army adopted this policy, and with a few minor design changes the modern dog tag came into existence.

Over the years the dog tag has become an icon of the military. In the movies the visual symbolism to indicate that a character was, at any time, associated with the service is the ever-present dog tags around their necks. Personally, a decade after my service ended, I still carry mine with me every day. So associated with the military, the dog tags have also became a symbol of bad-ass-ness; every wannabe, from Justin Bieber to the armchair commandos that answer the call of duty with a controller in their hands have a far nicer set than those in my pocket.

Troops in Transition

Project Statement

          Somewhat unsurprisingly, a comprehensive study of mental-health risks showed that members of the US Armed Forces have a significantly higher likelihood of developing mental illnesses than the general population, with some conditions, like post-traumatic stress disorder, appearing more than a full order of magnitude more often in military members.¹ A 2012 Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) study cautiously stated that 18-22 veterans commit suicide per day.² Although the report is often cited by a number of lawmakers and veterans advocacy groups, decontextualization places a significant portion of the interest on veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.³ This is further perpetuated by the younger veterans, of which “[o]ne in two veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan wars say they know a fellow service member who attempted or committed suicide.”⁴

          The average age of male veterans that committed suicide between 1999 and 2010 was 59.6 years old, much older than the overall civilian population, and well outside the average age of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.⁵ There is a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans that are veterans from age 55 on, peaking at ages 85-89 with 80 percent of surviving men having served as some point (women of all ages show between 1 to 3 percent).⁶ A lack of sufficient research and reliable statistics has made the topic of veteran suicide difficult to adequately analyze.⁷ The VA dedicated itself to supporting “the safety and well-being of our nation's Veterans of all eras,” and has increased their suicide risk assessments and prevention efforts.⁸ While that is not necessarily a change from previous policies, this is one of the first reports to both identify older veterans as having continuing serious mental health issues and to catch wide-spread attention. Lack of adequate contextualization has generated a narrative that focuses attention on the wrong generations.

          This comes at a time when long-standing Veterans Service Organizations, like the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States of America, are finding the ever-widening generation gap too difficult to cross.⁹ Younger veterans are not joining the ranks of veterans 30-years their senior for a number of reasons, but central to them is a sense that VSOs are out of touch with the needs and desires of the post-9/11 servicemembers. Despite the foundational goals of these groups, to care for both present and future veterans and their families,¹⁰ the older VSOs may be lapsing into irrelevancy as “military personnel have largely been spared from budget cuts … because of the overwhelming public support for the troops.”¹¹

Survivor's Guilt: Problems of Oral Histories of Veterans

          There are cultural expectations shaped as much by mass consumption entertainment as they are by lived experience. The collectives that societies form normalize attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that are enforced, consciously or otherwise. People that live with the memories of something too far outside of those expectations can find themselves silenced either by trying to speak to ears that refuse to hear, to minds that can not understand, or sometimes with mouths that are unable to express themselves. Military veterans, by the very nature of service, might find themselves on the wrong side of cultural expectations.

          Three veterans returning from World War II gaze out of the nose of a bomber flying to their home town, the rolling countryside slowly becoming more familiar to them as they get closer to home. The Navy Petty Officer Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), demonstrates the use of the hooks that have replaced both of his hands by lighting the cigarettes of the Air Force Lieutenant Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), and Army Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March).¹ After disembarking the three share a cab back to their old lives, or whatever they could make out of them; Homer not able to bring himself to embrace his sweetheart. Al Stephenson, unrecognized by the doorman at his own apartment, surprises his wife and children, but quickly finds out that his kids have grown up significantly, and his wife's social circles have changed. While dealing with mental traumas, Fred attempts to find the woman he married just before he departed, but when he does his marriage quickly sours as they party away the last of his savings. He is reduced to taking up his low paying pre-war job in a drug store, his military experience having no bearing on the civilian world. The film The Best Years of Our Lives might look a bit dated to a modern audience, as the acting and narratives of 1946 were more stylized than today's viewers are used to, but at the time it was praised for its realism.² The basic narrative of returning veterans trying to put their lives back together is made more poignant by the two-Oscar-winning portrayal of Homer by Army veteran Harold Russell (Best Supporting Actor, and a special award for “bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans through the medium of motion pictures”).³

Conversations About Fear: The Bonus March of 1932

“WARSHIPS AT HAVANA”

“Their Assembling is Favorably Regarded Here.”

          These were headlines from the Evening Star, January 26, 1898.¹ The newspaper lays out the situation as relayed by Consul General Fitzhugh Lee: the United States Armored Cruiser (referred to as a battle ship) USS Maine (ACR-1) had arrived to Havana, Cuba, for a good-will port visit, and the city received them well. Lee anticipated that German, British, and French ships would soon be joining them in the Spanish city, from which he had returned observing no signs of disorder. The intent of the international force was to show the Spanish government, currently contending with Cuban nationalists, that the Maine's visit was well intended.

          Less than a month later the Evening Star would be trying to make sense of the explosion aboard the Maine that destroyed the ship. Headlines like “The Maine Blown Up” sat next to “Officers Puzzled,” and “The Cabinet Confer: Members Discuss the News With the President” that reported the buzz of activity at the White House following the arrival of telegrams.² Included in those were regrets from the Spanish government and assurances that they were not responsible for the explosion. War drums quickly drowned out whatever good will the Maine had intended to convey. One week after the explosion, well before official investigations were complete, newspapers began publishing telegrams and letters of support for war with Spain. In Oklahoma The Wichita Daily Eagle ran an entire column on their front page of offers to serve, requests to the governor for authorization to raise companies of troops, and pledges of armed support to the President.³ By March, Lehigh University students paraded through the town with the slogan “To hell with Spain.”⁴ The phrase, sometimes amended with “Remember the Maine,” morphed quickly into songs and stories (many about children) that appeared around the country.⁵

Research Proposal for Veterans in Translation: An Oral History of Peace and War

Discussion of the Topic:

          In 1999 the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) was on a regularly scheduled three-month-long deployment in the Pacific Ocean when a fire aboard the USS George Washington (CVN-73) prevented them from taking their rotation in the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Southern Watch. Kitty Hawk, a few weeks away from returning to its home port of Yokosuka, Japan, was tasked to immediately redeploy to cover the gap in the rotation. The crew, having only been trained for the anticipated threats of a cruise under Threat Condition Normal, was not ready to go into a hostile environment where there was a chance of unconventional warfare. Making all speed toward the Gulf, the officers and the Damage Control Training Team (DCTT, pronounced DE-set) stepped up every possible training program on the aging ship.

          September 11, 2001 was still a long ways away, and the 1991 Operation Desert Storm was a long time before. The only recent activity in the Gulf that had made international news was in 1998 when Iraq allowed weapons inspectors to enter the country. Before Saddam Hussein had struck an agreement, the 1MC (1 Main Circuit, a public address system) at Recruit Training Facility Great Lakes, Il., crackled to life in the middle of one of the many, nearly identical days I spent at Basic Training. After a short briefing on the situation in Iraq, all of us recruits looked at each other with confusion and foreboding. Before we could flood our Recruit Division Commander with questions, he departed the barracks, leaving us alone to grapple with the news we had just received.

          “Are we going to war?” asked a fellow recruit whose name I will never remember, but whose wavering voice and deeply concerned expression I will never forget.