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Patch ID needed: We Try Harder Vietnam


skeety556
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Anyone help me with this one? Thanks in advance...

 

Jim

 

Hi

I have it as 45th Aviation battalion. Im sure someone else can tell you more about it.

 

Cheers,

Ole

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I don't think it's that. I noticed that the 45th has that motto, but from what I can tell, it was not in VN (Stanton).

 

-Ski

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I have been trying to pinpoint this one on and off for a couple years now. I have gotten leads for the 124th Transportation Command, and that is what I have decided to put it under. As best as I can figure the map is of Cam Ranh Bay. Do a google and check out the peninsula on that side of VN. I believe it to be a match. Hope someone can give some concrete evidence. From memory, I was trying to associate the colors of the area with Army branch colors, but that really did not help me any.

 

Hunter

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It was listed as an unknown in ASMIC Trading Post jan-mar 2008 page 39.

And it was ID as 45th Avn Bde in ASMIC Trading Post apr-june 2008 page 55.

 

That is what i based my judgment on. I do not have the following four editions of the Trading Post following the april june issue 2008. It might be that it was corrected in those issues, that it is not the 45th.

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Though I can't prove it, I ahve always thought this patch had something to do with Naval Aviation. During the Viet Nam War, various elements of a Carrier Air Wing were identified by different tail colors. The different colored arrows might relate to this.

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Anyone help me with this one? Thanks in advance...

 

Jim

 

The colors lend one to think of the Branch colors for the General Staff, Ordinance, Medical, Cavalry, Infantry and Artillery. There is fluctuation in the branch colors over time but given the patch more or less dates itself to Vietnam era, the color representations pretty much match what was then in effect for those branches. All the branches converging on a single area definitely suggests some sort of command function that handled the influx of those units assigned to each of the branches.

While there was no 45th Aviation Battalion assigned to Vietnam, there was a 45th Transportation Battalion. It served the needs of the first aviation units sent to Vietnam and was later renamed the 145th Aviation Battalion.

One day a picture will probably come to light, showing the patch in wear or the design on a command identification board.

 

IH

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  • 8 years later...
Salvage Sailor
UNK 26 - WE TRY HARDER VIETNAM - Unknown Navy CVW patch, Vietnam War for ID
 
Another Carrier Air Group Five "Going Downtown"?  
 
I'm still thinking that this one is a Navy Carrier Air Group due to the Rainbow arrows coming from the sea.  Several use the rainbow Arrows imagery in their heraldry.

 

Two more guesses from our members on my 'Can you ID' topic

 

MSTS

  1. I have this patch from a large group of US Military Sealift Command stuff and makes perfect sense. Going 'downtown' on Cam Ranh Bay? Logistics, not airstrikes
  2. The Cam Ranh Bay MSTS office's motto was apparently "We Try Harder" per Sealift September 1968

https://books.google...harder"&f=false

 

Thoughts?

UNK 026.jpg

 

UNK 026a.jpg

 

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MSTS makes more sense than anything else I've seen before. However it seems odd that a 9 man office would have generated such a somewhat common patch. Not super easy to find, but these do turn up with a decent degree of frequency compared to a lot of other VN insignia from much larger organizations

 

"We Try Harder" was a popular Avis rental car slogan at the time right? It seems to have been adopted by several units across the military at the time, both officially and unofficially.

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  • 4 months later...
Cap Camouflage Pattern I

427museum0436.jpg.f1cb87735c12fbabf9b4a81cf1d24e2a.jpg

 

Shadow box of Elza L. Miller, 124th transportation Command, 1967-1968.

In the collection of the Texas Tech University Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive. 

Photograph from their Virtual Archive.

 

 

My gut feeling is it's not a unit patch, but one worn by soldiers of many commands who served at Cam Ran Bay.

 

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  • 11 months later...
Salvage Sailor

Very interesting and plausible theory i.e. units serving in the Cam Ranh Bay vicinity

 

Thoughts?

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