The Tag

English: USMC Dog tags, modern (Vietnam era).

English: USMC Dog tags, modern (Vietnam era). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thin, oblong, silver metal.

It doesn’t mean much, but it contains a lot. There is meaning in the stamped impression.

It tells all for the first 8 weeks of the new life.

It carries secrets of the past.

You get two: one for your neck and one for your boot.

It’s not the one around your neck that disturbs the civilian soul; it’s the one tied in the laces of your boot.

If anything goes wrong out there, in the dark, in the sand, in the echo of war, it’s the one in the boot that comes home.