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Neat Vietnam-era Boonie made of scraps


GIKyle
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While helping a friend clean out his house, I pulled this out of a box. Beyond it being a theatre made boonie cap, I like that it's made out of scraps of two or three different types of Tiger Stripe material. My friend was part of MAAG Thailand and with II FF in Vietnam, and he was not sure which tour he acquired this on, but still pretty neat nonetheless and I thought others might enjoy it.

 

Kyle

 

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I didn't do it to my boonie hat, but cut off my tiger pants after I got out. Why, when now they are worth $$$$. Oh, well, they made for good swim trunks in Acapulco, in 71! After a couple of outing I think they were used to clean my car, and then, well, off to the rags! I don't even remember if these are golden tigers or what?? All they were at the time were my left over uniform stuff, that sadly in those days I could care less about!

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A sad story but often repeated. I've had at least a dozen military uniforms with white house paint, car grease and damage from auto battery acid.

 

What collectors forget is many troops considered these to be "work clothes" as opposed to collectibles.

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Owen,

Well, they were damn good trunks for a while! All I remember from them is that they had a zipper, while most of the tigers had buttons. I think I tossed them out when the zipper went south on me. Most of my stuff was regular og107's and ERDL. I did buy only one pair of tigers and only used them a little. They wouldn't fit now anyway. Heck, a 30 inch waist was the norm for that era!

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Nice boonie!

 

As for wearing uniforms for civilian work, WWII A-2s are notorious for having paint on them. The running joke among flight jacket collectors is that half the guys that wore them were painters after the war (which probably isn't far from the truth considering all the construction that was going on).

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I had 5 uncles who were in the Army during WW2. They were all farmers. I remember clearly them all wearing HBTs, khakis (with insignia, boon dockers and field jackets working in the field. When my dad got out of the Navy in 1956, he gave them all of his dungarees and foul weather jackets. He went into the AF in 56-60, and when he got out of the AF, the uncles got all his sage green fatigues, boots, jackets, caps and khakis. He went back into the Navy then, and when he retired in 67, I got all his dungarees and such and wore them working in a gas station and camping. Including working and foul weather jackets. It was hard wearing durable stuff.

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  • 4 years later...

Wanted to resurrect this as I found another boo or hat out of the same house. Different camo pattern with a plastic inside and the material has a waterproof feel to it. Seems to have been assembled overseas, though.

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