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A grab at the brass ring: My haul of State Guard and National Guard OCS patches


Teamski
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OK, for the record, here is the story of how Richard Smith's name came to be on the cover of "our" state guard book.

 

For many years (since the mid-'70's) Gary Poppleton and I had collected state guard patches, mostly alone I might add. We frequently bemoaned the fact that there was little to no information available about state guard patches. Richard Smith had been a mutual friend for many years and we found out that he, too, liked state guard patches. To shorten this saga a bit, Richard told us one day that if we would write a state guard reference book he would finance the printing of it. He had already written and published several great patch reference books and his name was well-established in the collecting community. Well, we wrote the book and Bob Woerpel and Iris Duke illustrated the book with B & W line drawings. In those days printing a book in color was almost prohibitively expensive, but Smitty agreed to "loan" our book the six color plates of state guard patches from his WWII patch book, and he would also pay for adding two more color plates illustrating a sampling of some post-WWII state guard/state defense force patches. Before we got to the final stages of the book, Smitty asked me if I would have any problem putting HIS name on the cover of the book. He was trying to pump up sales by using his already well-known name recognition, whereas we had none. We readily agreed to Smitty's suggestion.

 

Think about this: Gary and I had begun this entire "project" with the simple thought of having a state guard reference book at long last. Were any egos involved? Never. Were we considering this effort as a money-making scheme? Never.

 

Well, the book got written and published in both hard cover and soft cover versions. As with almost any small audience book, these sold quickly at first and then sales dribbled in for the rest of Smitty's cut-short life. At the time of Smitty's early demise, he had never recovered his entire investment in the state guard book. That was a pity. The remaining unsold books were (evidently) sold off to a dealer. We never had any input as far as what happened to the remaining stock.

 

So, there is the story of how Richard Smith's name.came to be on the cover of our state guard book.

 

PatchJohnson

Steve Johnson

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Well, I stand corrected. I was able to get a copy from the dealer on E-Bay, so thank for the heads-up! If you read my thread on spiral binding my copy of Smith's WWII book, you will already know I hold his books in very high esteem.

 

-Ski

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I finally got the book. Really happy with it. One question, though..... What does the double asterisk denote after some of the patches? I can't figure that out. Interesting to find that some of these patches are actually Patch Guild examples.

 

-Ski

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  • 2 years later...

Teamski! I identified one of your patches. It is one I have been looking for for quite some time. The insignia that you identified as an Oklahoma Air Depot is actually the 348th Sub Depot at Casper Army Air Base, in Casper, Wyoming. It is not a very common patch. I am the director of the Museum at the Air Base, you can visit our Facebook page at Wyoming Veterans Museum or our web page (which is currently being overhauled and is not very useful right now)! If you would be interested in selling or trading that insignia I would be interested also. It would be an artifact that would reside in the collections of the Wyoming Veterans Museum on the site of the old Casper Army Air Base. Point of note, most of the 348th Sub-Depot buildings are still standing. Either way, thanks for posting your new finds!

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