A lot of interesting information can be drawn from someone’s dog tags- even in the case of fictional characters, if the props crew has done their research. Simply out of curiosity, I had started researching information regarding Bucky’s dog tags (with the motivation of finding out if the idea of him being drafted had any credibility), but I quickly found myself immersed in the plethora of fascinating info that can be drawn from a mere piece of metal.
Firstly, I will be presenting a bit of historical information that will give context for the latter (and perhaps more important) half of this post: what kind of canon info surrounding Bucky can be extrapolated from his dog tags, and what headcanons can be created in good faith with that info?
Variations and General Information:
In World War II, there were four different variations of dog tags used throughout the war. Their dates were as follows:
First Type: December 1940 - November 1941
Second Type: November 1941 - July 1943
Third Type: July 1943 - March 1944
Fourth Type: March 1944 - April 1946
Bucky’s dog tags are an iteration of the second type, as we can tell from this photo Sebastian Stan took on the set of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
It reads:
JAMES B BARNES
32557038 T41 42 O
R. BARNES
3092 STOCKTON RD
SHELBYVILLE IN P
For the sake of simplicity and relevance, I will only briefly go over the other types, and how they vary from the second.
The first type does not include tetanus shots, nor religion. The third type removes the name and address of next of kin. And the fourth type changes the sequence of the owner’s name.
Another thing to note is that dog tags come in pairs of two, hence the plural when referring to them. There is one tag attached to the main chin band around the neck, while the other tag is attached by a smaller chain to the main chain. This was used for identification in the case of casualty; one tag is taken back to base by the soldier’s troop, while the other remains on the body. This made it easier to keep track of deaths while in active combat, where retrieving the body would be impossible.
Meaning:
Now that we have established the generation of dog tag Bucky has, the next logical step is to understand what the information printed means. It is easiest to go through this piece by piece, and line by line.
JAMES B BARNES
This is pretty much self explanatory, as it lists Bucky’s first name, middle initial, and last name. James Buchanan Barnes. This is the identification part of the ID tag. Not much to say here.
32557038 T41 42 O
This next line is where things get a bit more interesting. It is best to do this section by section, starting with the first eight digits, “32557038.”
This is Bucky’s ID number. While there is some randomness to it, a couple of the numbers actually can give us some important information.
The first digit listed is a “3.” This signifies a draftee. Enlisted army men would have a “1” as their first number, as they were considered a part of the regular army. (Other numbers, such as “2” indicate other fields like the National Guard- which are irrelevant to what we are looking at, but nonetheless interesting.)
The second digit is a “2.” Regardless of whether your first ID number is a “3” or “1,” this next number is based solely on location. Bucky was from Brooklyn, meaning he was a part of the Second Corps area, which included New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. The Second Corps area was represented by the number 2.
The other areas are listed as follows, briefly:
First Corps Area (1) : Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut
Third Corps Area (3) : Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia
Fourth Corps Area (4) : North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana
Fifth Corps Area (5) : Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky
Sixth Corps Area (6) : Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin
Seventh Corps Area (7) : Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota
Eighth Corps Area (8) : Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, (part of) Arizona
Ninth Corps Area (9) : Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, (part of) Arizona, California, Alaska
(The Hawaiian, Panama Canal, Puerto Rican, and Philippine Departments were represented by a second number of “0”)
The last six digits of the number were assigned randomly, as they enlisted or were drafted.
(Another thing to note is that the numbers were given in chunks of a million; for example, enlisted men from the Third Corps Area would be given a number in the range of 13,000,000 to 13,999,999.)
The next section of this line is the “T41 42.” This is a bit simpler to explain, as the T stood for tetanus, and the numbers represented the year of immunization (as this was a requirement for the army). In this case, Bucky received his tetanus immunization in 1941, and his tetanus toxoid (vaccine) in 1942.
Lastly, the “O” in this line represents the ABO blood type of the individual. Because the technology for testing positive and negative blood types was new and not easily accessible during this time period, the Rh factor was excluded from the tag. It would later be added on, after the war. Bucky has O type blood, but whether this is O pos or O neg remains unknown.
R. BARNES
This line is in reference to the next of kin, Rebecca Barnes, Bucky’s sister.
3092 STOCKTON RD
And this piece is her street address, followed by-
SHELBYVILLE IN P
Her city and state. At the time of this tag's creation, Bucky’s next of kin was his sister, who lived in Shelbyville, Indiana.
The “P” at the end of this line represents the owner’s religion, in this case: Protestant. There were three total choices of religion during this period, the other two being Catholic (“C”) and Hebrew (“H”). (It is worthy to note that due to the nature of the war- i.e. persecution of Jews because of their religion- men could lie and have a different religion printed on their tag.)
Real life:
As a reference, while performing this research I was very fortunate to stumble across my great grandfather’s dog tags. His are of the third type (meaning they are the same as the second type- Bucky’s- but simply lack the next of kin address):
Coincidentally, my grandfather shares a lot of similarities with Bucky. For example, he was also born in 1917, and only was a Sergeant. The other similarities you can tell from the dog tag itself, as in he was also drafted, lived in the second corps area (New York, specifically), got his tetanus shots in 1941 and 1942, and had O as his blood type.
This is of little relevance to Bucky’s information, but in all honesty, I thought it was very cool that so many similarities were shared, and that I was actually able to hold this piece of history from a bygone era. My grandfather (who has often told me I embody the spirit of his dad) has been able to tell me a bunch of interesting history regarding my great grandfather, and has indulged my interests greatly haha. One such story he’s told me is that Abrams, who the Abrams tank was named after, was a commander and friend of my great grandfather in the war, as they likely bonded over the fact that they were the only two Jewish people around.
(Let me know in the comments if you have any interesting facts about family members and their involvement in the war!)
Canon implication:
So what does this mean in the context of the MCU? Well, it’s up to you to draw your own conclusions, but there are some indisputable facts that can be drawn from the information.
1.) Bucky was drafted.
This is not so much the headcanon it was assumed to be, but instead, real, hard, fact. Bucky Barnes was drafted into World War II. It says it right there, marked with a “3” on the beginning of his dog tags.
You could argue that these aren’t the same dog tags we can see in Captain America: the First Avenger-
Which is true, but we never get a good look at those tags. We can only see that they’re different since they lack the next of kin lines. However, in that same movie, we get Bucky mumbling his rank and ID numbers to himself. And while granted, it’s not the whole eight digits, we get the most important “3,” enforcing the fact he was drafted.
Another thing you could argue is that the memorial in the Smithsonian says that Bucky enlisted. But given that it lists his birth year as both 1916 and 1917, and opposed to the obvious gratuitous research that went into the dog tags, I can safely trust the word of facts over the word of some propagandized memorial tribute in a museum.
This does, however, lead into a possible headcanon for the MCU: Bucky never told Steve he was drafted, or specifically lied and told Steve he enlisted. This mainly hinges on the fact that Steve was the one to insist on such a large memorial for Bucky, and therefore (being the only one alive and with such complete knowledge on him) supplied the information. In this, the memorial would reflect Steve’s perception of Bucky, and heartbreakingly wouldn’t depict that this was a man who never wanted to fight, but who stuck around. Not for Captain America, but for his best friend.
2.) Bucky’s next of kin is his sister, Rebecca Barnes.
Okay, yes, this makes sense. But think about it more broadly. Why would Bucky’s listed next of kin be his sister, and not his mother or father? While legally, the distinction between these roles is negligible (as technically parents and siblings are of the same level of precedence regarding next of kin ruling) it would generally mean that his parents were both dead when Bucky was drafted.
Not only that, though, because as shown on the tag, Rebecca lived in Indiana during the time of creation. States away from New York.
This causes some possible situations and questions to arise. Did Bucky live by himself? Did he live with Steve? What happened to his other siblings, who were only briefly mentioned in the memorial plaque?
Personally, I’d like to think that Bucky took the extra responsibility on himself as the aforementioned eldest child, and attempted to help raise his remaining siblings by himself during the Great Depression. Again, this part is up for interpretation, but the information given lends to some complicated (and potentially angst-driven) situations that would be fun to explore.
3.) Bucky is listed as a Protestant.
Okay, now I’m not about to dive into a deep talk about religion, as I’m of the mind that you should choose to believe whatever you choose to believe, and we should not tread on others’ faiths. However, this printed fact can be taken one of three ways: either Bucky is truly protestant, couldn’t choose a faith that accurately represented his own, or didn’t want to put himself down as Hebrew for various reasons.
While I’m not a heavily religious person, and have no strong preference towards any of these options, it could be an interesting thing to explore, should you be into the subject. Especially surrounding the inner difficulties one may face having to hide what you truly believe, as a lot of people went through during this time.
4.) Bucky’s blood type is “O”
Again, even though the Rh factor was known about during this time (meaning whether the blood is POS or NEG), it wasn’t later until this was clarified. In all likelihood, this means that Bucky’s blood type is O+, since it’s the most common, but there is still the chance it’s O-, though that’s much less likely.
O-, however, is the “universal donor,” meaning it can be used for transfusions to a person of any blood type without negative effects. This introduces a whole bunch of explorable shenanigans regarding blood, such as impromptu blood transfusions on missions and fun stuff like that. An additional complicating factor is how Bucky’s blood is now encoded with what makes him a super soldier, meaning this could either conflict with or benefit his status as universal donor, depending on your medical interpretation of MCU science.
All in all, this is more of a basic, skimming the surface analysis of the meaning of dog tags in the MCU. The whole history of dog tags is super interesting, though, and I definitely encourage checking it out. There’s all sorts of interesting tidbits of information, like the materials used and how they changed through the years, how and why they introduced silencers, etc. It’s definitely worth looking into further.
That’s it for now, though! I hope you have some more fuel for angsty content- since, let’s be honest, that’s why you’re reading this lol.
It’s different then stuff I normally write, for obvious reasons, but if you do feel like checking out my more fiction-oriented works, I generally keep this information in mind while writing for tfatws. Feel free to check out the rest of this series in tfatws one shots, and I hope you all have a great day (or night)!