Commonwealth type Dog Tag issued to an American?

[Irish]

Can anyone tell me if this tag was issued to an American?? If so under what circumstances and what else does the tag tell us. Many thanks

[Mervyn Mitton]

From what I can make out -

L.I. PARSONS

PROT. (Protestant)

LIEUT. (LIEUTENANT)

M.O.R.C. (or, G)

U.S.A.

Irish - I am sorry that no-one has answered your enquiry. I have set out the details on the Tag and hope that

someone will be able to help. I feel that he was probably attached to a special unit - or, Command. Mervyn

[peter monahan]

I'm guessing that the answer probably lies in the "M. O. R. C./G.", which presumably is the organization or unit to which he belonged. Does that abbreviation ring any bells with anyone? If he were a Yank attached to a British unit or group he would presumably get dog tags if he were not in the US military and did not already have a set. That could apply to journalists, civilian employees, and probably many other categories of people.

[Trooper_D]

Can anyone tell me if this tag was issued to an American?? If so under what circumstances and what else does the tag tell us. Many thanks

A similar question was asked in the "Great War Forum", Irish. The answer (see link below) is that MORC stands for 'Medical Officer Reserve Corps' and it appears that a significant number of American doctors were attached to British units, on a contract as one-year volunteers, in the latter part of the Great War (before the entry of the USA into the war).

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=188610

Google the search string (between the arrow heads) > "M. O. R. C." "great war" < and you will find out a lot more about this organisation.

[Thanks for the prompt, Mervyn. This was something I knew nothing about and I was interested to discover yet another Great War anomaly. Kudos to Peter Monahan for spotting where the nub of the question lay!]

Edited to correct spelling!

Edited June 15, 2014 by Trooper_D

[Mervyn Mitton]

Always great when we can have a 'round robin' of opinion - and come to a conclusion. I was about to add that the tag

was part of British ID - a strange type of pressed material that had the details stamped-in.

Thankyou Trooper_D for telling us the details. Mervyn

[peter monahan]

Yes, good call, Trooper! Just getting into WWI stuff myself, so I would not have spotted that. This is why I hang out here!

Irish - hope that helps!