SF Chocolate Chip Coat

[Brian Keith]

I picked up several of these of the same vet about 10 years ago at a flea market. I thought they were interesting with the use of the green insignia and the US Flag under the SSI on the right shoulder.

Comments welcome. Thanks for looking.

BKW

 

 

 

[Brian Keith]

Sorry, I mean LEFT shoulder!

BKW

[gwb123]

Early Desert Storm, or possibly even earlier. The desert uniforms were in short supply as it was, and desert camo patches only started showing up about halfway through the conflict.

 

I agree with you.. an interesting combination from a very specific time frame.

[Brian Keith]

Thanks for you comments Gil! The tag is washed out so I can't see the contract date.

BKW

[BDU_Burger_Lover]

The USASOC SSI was approved effective 1 December 1989, thus establishing a very specific time frame indeed!

[Martinjmpr]

Yup, Desert Storm or even a bit later. Lots of USASOC units rotated to desert areas and often soldiers had to keep a set of DBDUS for such deployments. I had a set of chocolate chips that I wore when we deployed to China Lake NWC in 1992 and to Fort Bliss in 1993 for JTF-6 counterdrug missions. Ours were set up just like that with green patches and rank insignia as the tan stuff was not available (at least not to us at Fort Bragg) at that time. I think I first saw tan/desert color insignia in the late 1990s.

[Martinjmpr]

Also minor quibble but this is not "SF." The patch, as was said above, is USASOC: US Army Special Operations Command, the Army element of the Unified Command of SOCOM (Special Operations Command.) A SPC from USASOC could have been assigned to USASOC HQ or some element that falls directly under USASOC, or he could have been a part of the 160th SOAR, which wears the SOCOM patch.

 

Also, there were two support units that fell under SOCOM starting in the early 1990s: 528th SOSB (Special Operations Support Battalion) and 112th Signal Battalion. Both of those units had previously fallen under US Army Special Forces Command (USASFC) (which meant that the soldiers in both battalions wore the SF patch and the green beret) but this was changed around 1991 - 1992 or so and they were reassigned to USASOC, which is the "parent" command of USASFC,

[Brian Keith]

Thanks for all the comments folks. Glad you enjoyed seeing it. Martinjmpr, excellent additional comments. After I posted this I thought, I'm thinking he might not actually be SF, no Special Forces arc. He is parachute qualified, only E-4 so probably not be Special Forces.

BKW

[kammo-man]

Real stuff is NEVER normal.

This jacket perfectly fits in with the odd ball timeframe of uniform FLUX.

I like it.

I personly have always thought jackets like this are VERY hard to find as a collector.

Not many Desert _ Green ever come through thrift rag mill world.

Its cool.

owen

[Brian Keith]

Thanks for all the great comments, glad you enjoyed seeing it.

BKW

[Gumshoe]

First set of these I saw in the Marine Corps was in 1988, and were issued to 2/7 (while still at San Mateo) for CAX use at 29 Palms. In short supply, indeed. We had to turn them back in for laundering and reissue to the next unit heading out to Palmdale.