the daily extra

there's a myth that circulated for years concerning government dog tags issued to United States Army personnel during World War II. this particularly morbid myth concerns the notches on both sides of the tags. it is rumored that the notches were placed between the teeth of a dead soldier, and then the mouth was kicked shut, ensuring the proper identification of the corpse. but the real answer is that the notches are there to hold the tag in place on the embossing machine. the new dog tags, which use a different embossing machine, don't have the notches.

-from my desk calendar