Jump to content

BDUs... 1 is an Army Submariner, 1 is a Navy Airborne Troop


shrapneldude
 Share

Recommended Posts

shrapneldude

I'm a sucker for weird BDU's. Anything with oddball combinations like these two catch my eye and I have go get them.

Without any of the guy's story to go on, all I can do is guess, he was a Naval officer on subs who discharged and then joined the National Guard.

 

post-1424-1326095566.jpgpost-1424-1326095577.jpg

post-1424-1326095598.jpgpost-1424-1326095610.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

shrapneldude

post-1424-1326095652.jpgpost-1424-1326095658.jpg

post-1424-1326095670.jpg

 

Not entirely sure on this one -- it may be 100% correct to regs, I don't know, but I thought the Special Operations Command was an Army only thing, same with the Airborne tab.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

VirtualMariner

Strange, indeed. Enough so, that they look kind of made up, but who knows. The Navy uniform with the Army patch...I don't know. I've never seen a sailor with Army patches on their uniform from prior service. In another thread, we discussed sailors attached to Army units, but in those cases they wear an Army uniform that simply has a Navy tape and insignia on it. Something doesn't look right about this one, but there are all sorts of oddball variations out there that turn out to be legit.

 

The Army uniform with submariner device actually makes more sense to me, but this particular combination of patches looks unusual. When I was in the Navy, I was on an Amphib. A couple of times we had Army amphibian units aboard for training. Their Warrant Officers that commanded the boat units would come up to CIC and the Bridge to hang out with us, because they were pretty much all former Navy enlisted. The ones I met were OS's (which was what I was) and QM's, but they also took BM's into their Warrant program. If this is an enlisted submariner device, that might explain it, but I don't know if Army regs would allow it to be worn on the uniform.

 

Back then, seems like you had to be an E-6 in one of those Navy ratings to be accepted into the Army Warrant Officer program. That was a long time ago, though, so maybe someone knows more about that sort of thing than I do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

shrapneldude

The Army shirt has had those patches on there for quite a while -- they're "Puckered" on the back, meaning the material kinda shrank around the patch after repeated laundering and wearing. If it were an active duty or even reserve unit, I'd say it's questionable, but being a national guard unit, I think it's weird but original.

 

The navy one has been heavily starched and has also had that patch on for some time. As you said, the only stuff like this I've encountered is Army ACU pattern with Navy Insignia on it, never really seen a Navy uniform with Army insignia on it. Perhaps someone in the know with Special Operations can chime in and confirm or disprove this was ever even possible.

 

At any rate, I've spent several days recently standing literally waist-deep in DRMO bins full of used BDUs digging out anything that seemed interesting. These two were by far the weirdest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another platoon sgt in my battalion wears a submariner badge from prior navy service. I would bet the farm that one is 100% legit. Very cool combos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

VirtualMariner

The cool thing is that they're probably both legit...it's just a matter of knowing what kind of unusual circumstances exist in the back story. I guess what bothers me about the Navy uniform with the Army patch is that the sea services (Navy, Marines & Coast Guard) are generally more restrictive, to my understanding, in what they allow on the uniform from prior service outside the sea services. Kind of ties into the fact that they don't have as much uniform bling in general. I'll be interested to see if someone can come up with an explanation on this one. I've met people who were in 3 different branches of service and served as both enlisted and officer to boot, so even though they might be unusual, about every combination exists out there, even if it is an exception to the rule.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dan,

Several months ago, a person from Indiana was selling their US Navy BDU's on Ebay and their's had the exact same set up as yours with the SOCOM and Airborne tab. According to what they said, hey were in the US Navy and was attached to SOCOM during the Desert Storm time period. Definitely a weird combination, but not the first time I have heard or seen this. Both of your BDU's look okay to me and I would not hesitate to buy them if I saw them hanging on a rack of uniforms. :thumbsup:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought you were joking in the title, but apparently not! :lol: I'd say the USNG officer was a Navy submariner first, and then went into the National Guard after his initial service commitment was over (I've been thinking about going into the USAFR now that I'm out of the Navy...)

 

The second one looks like the rank insignia would have been for Chief's anchors. A rather odd combination!

 

Dave

Link to comment
Share on other sites

post-1424-1326095652.jpgpost-1424-1326095658.jpg

post-1424-1326095670.jpg

 

Not entirely sure on this one -- it may be 100% correct to regs, I don't know, but I thought the Special Operations Command was an Army only thing, same with the Airborne tab.

 

The Navy jacket with the United States SOCOM (a unit made up of all branches) SSI as a pocket patch makes sense to me. Yes, the SSI is an Army patch worn by the Army members of the command. So the wearing of the patch as a pocket patch by other branches would be something that I could see happening. The use of SSI's as "pocket patches is nothing new. An example of this is when the 245th Avn Bn (SO)(ABN) of the Oklahoma ARNG wearing the 1st SOCOM SSI as a pocket patch while they countinued to wear the 45th Inf Div patch as thier SSI

Link to comment
Share on other sites

post-1424-1326222051.jpg

http://prtghazni.blogspot.com/2011/05/prt-...wo-members.html

I was looking for something else and found this photo of a US Navy Commander wearing the SOCOM and Airborne patch on his right sleeve. It's hard to tell in this photo, but if you go to the link, there's a giant hi-res photo, and he's got US Navy branch tapes on his ACUs and this patch on his shoulder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...