I grew up watching MASH, and I remember very vividly an interview in which Alan Alda said that the dog tags the cast wore belonged to real soldiers. I thought that was cool. I also remember a time when dog tags were used as a fashion accessory. I remember wanting some.

Now, there’s a company, Quick Trophy, offering fashion colored dog tags as an alternative to medals or participation prizes for school or community sports teams. I don’t play any kind of sport (well, unless improv counts), but I liked the idea of using these dog tags as a form of advertising for my website, especially after I learned that one of the colors available is pink.

I first had to choose my sport, because each tag comes with a little icon, representing the sport or event in question. I selected LaCrosse because I think it’s an underrated sport. When I order more, I’ll probably pick cheerleading or music. Since I was ordering only one tag, I only had to fill out one set of engraving information, but the website is set up to allow customization within each order, so if you want different names on each of ten tags, you can do that.

The interface was easy to use and intuitive, and I received an email confirming my order after I’d completed the checkout procedure. A few days later, I received another email telling me my order has shipped, and a couple of days after that, my pink dog tag was waiting for me in the mailbox, with the 18″ ball chain sealed in a baggie, just as promised. (Each piece is wrapped in plastic, so that nothing arrives scratched.)

The chain was a little bit tough to link together, mainly because I didn’t want to break a nail, but it snapped into place, and the shiny pink tag can be worn around my neck with no fuss, and no discomfort because it weighs almost nothing. The color of the pink, by the way, is the same as the pink iPod shuffle.

I would definitely use Quick Trophy again, as I had my tag within a week, even without special shipping, and I really liked the ease of use of their site. As well, I like that there are discounts for ordering items in larger quantities.

Of course, they sell other sorts of prize trophies as well – including actual medals.

But I really like the dog tags.