Dog Tags

The Defense Ministry announced Sunday that it will investigate whether a slain anti-Sandinista guerrilla that Nicaragua identified as an American "mercenary" was an active member of the U.S. armed forces. Ministry officials Saturday reported that a man killed March 27 in a northern war zone was wearing a U.S. Army "dog tag" identifying him as Roger Patterson. However, the Patterson named on the tag is alive in Selma, Ala.

SAN DIEGO - Marine Staff Sgt. Mark Zambon was in Afghanistan, on his fourth combat deployment as an explosive ordnance disposal technician, when he took a step and heard the ominous click. "I remember flying through the air and coming down on my shoulder," he said. "My eyes were shut, and the radio was blaring that I needed medevac. " His legs were severed above his knees. His arm was shattered. Two years have passed since that day in Helmand province when Zambon became a victim of a buried bomb.

If military pathologists developing a system of "DNA dog tags" reach their goal, no more unknown soldiers ever will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The system was used to identify some of the 376 Americans killed in the Gulf War, in one case by matching a dead soldier's DNA with whisker dust in an electric shaver he had left at home. In the past, use of fingerprints, dental records and small metal necklace plates called dog tags identified most soldiers killed in battle, but not all.

Michelle Reiter lost $4,000 in cash, a 32-inch TV and a laptop computer when her Glendale home was burglarized. But also stolen that day was something far more valuable — her 11-year-old teacup Yorkshire terrier, Sophie. Since that time, she has been frantically searching for Sophie, not only because the dog is her greatest love, but because Sophie needs periodic medication for her bowels. Sophie was reported stolen after burglars entered Reiter's home on May 7 in the 600 block of Beulah Street through a rear bathroom window and ransacked the inside, according to Glendale Police Department reports.

Someday soon, we could all become human homing pigeons, toting around in our mouths a sliver-thin plastic micro disc fastened to a back molar containing one's name and serial number. Lose your identification? Just open wide. Inscribed on a piece of film no bigger than the small letter "o" that you've just read, the vital data will be there, right down to your age, telephone number and whether you're allergic to penicillin. Like an American Express Card, you won't leave home without it.

A government army patrol fighting U.S.-backed rebels in northern Nicaragua found an identification tag "typically employed by the U.S. Army" on the body of a slain guerrilla, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said Saturday. Ortega said that he presumed the man carrying the "dog tag" was an American citizen. The metal tag, reproduced on paper in a Defense Ministry communique, bore the name Roger Patterson and the identification number 419-96-7523.

The phone call came about two months ago. "Is this Arthur Wiknik who served in Vietnam?" the voice asked. Indeed it was. Did Wiknik recall losing, all those years ago, one of his military-issue dog tags? There were a lot of Vietnam memories seared into Wiknik's mind. But none about dog tags. Bryan Marks, who was calling from California, said he bought the tag from a vendor on a recent trip to Vietnam. He read the stamped metal he held in his hand.

It was a crime that ordinarily would attract no attention at all in a city of 400,000: the smashing of a window, the theft of a bag from a rental car parked outside a buffet restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colo. But the bag belonged to a young widow, and it contained the belongings of her husband, an airman who died last month in Afghanistan -- including a laptop bearing photos of him with his infant daughter, born weeks before his death; a watch his parents gave him for Christmas; and most significant to his mother, the dog tags he was wearing when he was killed.

SAN DIEGO - Marine Staff Sgt. Mark Zambon was in Afghanistan, on his fourth combat deployment as an explosive ordnance disposal technician, when he took a step and heard the ominous click. "I remember flying through the air and coming down on my shoulder," he said. "My eyes were shut, and the radio was blaring that I needed medevac. " His legs were severed above his knees. His arm was shattered. Two years have passed since that day in Helmand province when Zambon became a victim of a buried bomb.

Hundreds of mourners trekked up a flag-lined street for the funeral of Army Staff Sgt. Alex Jimenez, 25, whose body was found 14 months after he and two fellow soldiers were captured during an ambush in Iraq. His father, Ramon "Andy" Jimenez, wore his son's dog tags around his neck, and his mother, Maria Duran, placed a cross on his casket in St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Lawrence, where Alex Jimenez had received his first communion. The soldier's casket was escorted by fellow members of the 10th Mountain Division.

His last letter home to his father is written in tight script on paper that has yellowed. It's dated Feb. 20, 1944. "Just a line Dad to say goodbye and don't worry too much," wrote Marine 1st Lt. Laverne A. Lallathin, 22. "I'm going over to end this thing as soon as possible. Buy as many bonds as you can and pray that I will be all-right. " A month later, Lallathin vanished along with six crew members of the B-25 bomber he was piloting from Espiritu Santo, the largest island in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu.

A biting wind whipped down a dark street, where a man crouched in the shadow of a building. He pulled on black gloves and glanced up and down the avenue. Satisfied that no one was watching, he pulled a mask the size of a beach ball out of a bag, pulled it onto his head and wriggled it into place: snout in front, eye holes over his own, rounded ears pointed skyward. Death Bear was ready for his mission. A man in the second-floor unit of a nearby apartment building in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn was desperate to get rid of something that was too torturous to keep but impossible to discard.

It was a crime that ordinarily would attract no attention at all in a city of 400,000: the smashing of a window, the theft of a bag from a rental car parked outside a buffet restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colo. But the bag belonged to a young widow, and it contained the belongings of her husband, an airman who died last month in Afghanistan -- including a laptop bearing photos of him with his infant daughter, born weeks before his death; a watch his parents gave him for Christmas; and most significant to his mother, the dog tags he was wearing when he was killed.

Lost: Dog tags. Name: Pat Tillman. If anyone knows of the whereabouts of two dog tags that once adorned the neck of a former NFL star who was killed while fighting for his country in Afghanistan, please come forward. His former team, the Arizona Cardinals, play Sunday in the Super Bowl His former Cardinals roommate, Zack Walz, is desperate to wear them again. Walz was given the tags by Tillman as a gift shortly before his death.

Hundreds of mourners trekked up a flag-lined street for the funeral of Army Staff Sgt. Alex Jimenez, 25, whose body was found 14 months after he and two fellow soldiers were captured during an ambush in Iraq. His father, Ramon "Andy" Jimenez, wore his son's dog tags around his neck, and his mother, Maria Duran, placed a cross on his casket in St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Lawrence, where Alex Jimenez had received his first communion. The soldier's casket was escorted by fellow members of the 10th Mountain Division.

It's a dog's life ... don't we wish. U.S. ski racer Daron Rahlves has brought his dog, Chevy, to the Olympics. What's so special about that? According to U.S. ski team spokesman Marc Habermann, Chevy has been issued an Olympic credential complete with the dog's picture. Habermann says the Siberian husky is required to go through security but has privileges reporters don't have. "That dog can go places you can't," Habermann told reporters before Sunday's downhill race. -- Chris Dufresne

Seicoh Gushken plucks a jagged chunk of metal from the newly disturbed earth of an all-but-forgotten hillside. Turning the rusty object over in nicotine-stained fingers, he identifies it as shrapnel, most likely from a hand grenade. "This kind of thing can be found all around," he said, tossing it aside. "Military guys still go exploring in the caves and find whole skeletons and dog tags." Gushken, an Okinawan painter and teacher, is standing at the base of Sugar Loaf Hill, scene of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II in the Pacific.

A biting wind whipped down a dark street, where a man crouched in the shadow of a building. He pulled on black gloves and glanced up and down the avenue. Satisfied that no one was watching, he pulled a mask the size of a beach ball out of a bag, pulled it onto his head and wriggled it into place: snout in front, eye holes over his own, rounded ears pointed skyward. Death Bear was ready for his mission. A man in the second-floor unit of a nearby apartment building in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn was desperate to get rid of something that was too torturous to keep but impossible to discard.

The phone call came about two months ago. "Is this Arthur Wiknik who served in Vietnam?" the voice asked. Indeed it was. Did Wiknik recall losing, all those years ago, one of his military-issue dog tags? There were a lot of Vietnam memories seared into Wiknik's mind. But none about dog tags. Bryan Marks, who was calling from California, said he bought the tag from a vendor on a recent trip to Vietnam. He read the stamped metal he held in his hand.

When Bill Vargas got the phone call from a stranger that one of his dog tags had turned up on a street vendor's cart in Ho Chi Minh City, he guessed it was some kind of scam. He'd lost the metal identification tag in the jungles of Vietnam during the height of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s. He figured it was gone forever.