thedrifter
07-21-08, 06:59 AM
Monday, July 21, 2008 Chattanooga: Dog tags without owners
By: Lauren Gregory
(Contact)
Sgt. John Hershel White’s remains rest in the Bryant, Ala., Cemetery. But his sister, Nina Ruth Clark, says she relishes the part of him she gets to keep with her: his dog tags.
“Having all of his things helps. It’s kind of a relief,” said Mrs. Clark, who waited 58 years to discover her brother’s fate before he finally was returned to her family for burial last weekend.
Seeing long-lost remains and taking possession of items such as dog tags are a way to close the loop on decades of grief for Mrs. Clark and countless others who suffer losses during wartime. Officials at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command’s Central Identification Lab in Hawaii — the agency that identified Sgt. White’s remains — understand and embrace this, said Dr. Robert Mann, the lab’s deputy director.
“Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines wore their dog tags close to their heart in battle,” Dr. Mann said. “It was the one thing they took into combat meant to identify them if they were killed. It’s also one of the things they carried with them every minute of the day — in battle, when they bathed, they slept, were wounded or died.”
Both grieving family members and service members who are still alive are always very emotional when they receive lost tags, he said. So the lab not only takes time to identify remains of lost troops, it has launched a Dog Tag Project, as well.
The project began in 1994, when an American tourist in Vietnam purchased 1,444 dog tags in a souvenir shop. She contacted government officials, and eventually a Web page to list all of the tags was launched, Dr. Mann said.
“One thing led to another, and before I knew it, we’d reunited 76 dog tags with their owners or family members,” he said.
The lab now has about 2,000 dog tags and is not soliciting more at this time, he said. People are encouraged to look at the Web listing and contact officials there if they believe they can claim one, he said.
Outside of that, a number of nonprofit and veteran groups have been formed to return dog tags to service members and their families, according to Dr. Mann, who suggests that those looking for lost tags search the Internet for clues.
The tags may be hiding all the way across the world, said Harry Jas, who lives in Australia but recently happened upon a 1942 dog tag with a connection to Chattanooga. He has been searching for its owner since his son found it in the Solomon Islands.
The tag lists next of kin as “Mrs. Cors L. Blake, 1302 E. 36th St., Chattanooga, Tenn.,” he wrote in an e-mail.
Mr. Jas has found about 12 tags with locations in the United States that he believes were left behind after the battle for Guadalcanal. He has determined that at least a few of them are real and has returned them to Mississippi and Louisiana. He plans to continue the project.
He has yet to find any relatives of Cors Blake in the Chattanooga area but said he’ll continue the search.
“It just seemed the right thing to do to try and return them to the next of kin,” he said. “If they had been my tags, I would want my family to have them.”
Returning them feels just as good as receiving them, according to Mr. Jas.
“The feeling for me is more overwhelming than I had expected, especially when I get e-mails of thanks and phone calls,” he said. “It’s those warm fuzzy moments that make it all worth the effort.”
Ellie
By: Lauren Gregory
(Contact)
Sgt. John Hershel White’s remains rest in the Bryant, Ala., Cemetery. But his sister, Nina Ruth Clark, says she relishes the part of him she gets to keep with her: his dog tags.
“Having all of his things helps. It’s kind of a relief,” said Mrs. Clark, who waited 58 years to discover her brother’s fate before he finally was returned to her family for burial last weekend.
Seeing long-lost remains and taking possession of items such as dog tags are a way to close the loop on decades of grief for Mrs. Clark and countless others who suffer losses during wartime. Officials at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command’s Central Identification Lab in Hawaii — the agency that identified Sgt. White’s remains — understand and embrace this, said Dr. Robert Mann, the lab’s deputy director.
“Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines wore their dog tags close to their heart in battle,” Dr. Mann said. “It was the one thing they took into combat meant to identify them if they were killed. It’s also one of the things they carried with them every minute of the day — in battle, when they bathed, they slept, were wounded or died.”
Both grieving family members and service members who are still alive are always very emotional when they receive lost tags, he said. So the lab not only takes time to identify remains of lost troops, it has launched a Dog Tag Project, as well.
The project began in 1994, when an American tourist in Vietnam purchased 1,444 dog tags in a souvenir shop. She contacted government officials, and eventually a Web page to list all of the tags was launched, Dr. Mann said.
“One thing led to another, and before I knew it, we’d reunited 76 dog tags with their owners or family members,” he said.
The lab now has about 2,000 dog tags and is not soliciting more at this time, he said. People are encouraged to look at the Web listing and contact officials there if they believe they can claim one, he said.
Outside of that, a number of nonprofit and veteran groups have been formed to return dog tags to service members and their families, according to Dr. Mann, who suggests that those looking for lost tags search the Internet for clues.
The tags may be hiding all the way across the world, said Harry Jas, who lives in Australia but recently happened upon a 1942 dog tag with a connection to Chattanooga. He has been searching for its owner since his son found it in the Solomon Islands.
The tag lists next of kin as “Mrs. Cors L. Blake, 1302 E. 36th St., Chattanooga, Tenn.,” he wrote in an e-mail.
Mr. Jas has found about 12 tags with locations in the United States that he believes were left behind after the battle for Guadalcanal. He has determined that at least a few of them are real and has returned them to Mississippi and Louisiana. He plans to continue the project.
He has yet to find any relatives of Cors Blake in the Chattanooga area but said he’ll continue the search.
“It just seemed the right thing to do to try and return them to the next of kin,” he said. “If they had been my tags, I would want my family to have them.”
Returning them feels just as good as receiving them, according to Mr. Jas.
“The feeling for me is more overwhelming than I had expected, especially when I get e-mails of thanks and phone calls,” he said. “It’s those warm fuzzy moments that make it all worth the effort.”
Ellie