Bring back "Vietnamese" wings

[Rolf]

A good friend of mine gave me a set of his "Vietnamese" wings. Here's the back story:

 

When Steve served with 5th Group as a young sergeant and a recent "Q" course graduate he had an opportunity to jump with the VN Special Forces unit his team supported. At the completion of the jump they pinned a set of Vietnamese jump wings on his uniform.

 

Now Steve had only one set of VN wings and he couldn't wear them on his tigers so he put them away until he could get some sew-ons. Some months later he went on R&R to Saigon and while bar hopping came across a small sewing shop that dealt in uniforms and uniform items. So Steve goes in and asks if they have any sew-on jump wings. The pretty girl nods her head and pulls down a dusty box that contained about 15 sew-on wings.

 

While Steve was haggling about the price of 4 sets of wings old Papa-san comes out of the back stall and speaks sharply to the pretty sales clerk and then goes back in the stall. The pretty sales clerk blushes and says to him that her father (Papa-san) served with the French Paras and that she was to sell all the sew-ons the brave American paratrooper wants for the price of one set of wings.

 

Steve promptly purchased all the wings she has and leaves the shop congratulating himself on his bartering skills. Since he didn't bring any tigers with him on R&R he has to wait until he gets back to base camp to sew them on. Upon his return he does not have a chance to go to the local ville to the seamstress so he hand sews one set on.

 

While he's strutting around the compound with his sporting his brand new set of sew-ons he notices that all his buddies are smirking at him and whispering to each other. His team sergeant finally calls him over and asks him when he jumped with the French Paras.

 

Apparently Papa-san had sold him his last remaining stock of French wings that look very close to the Vietnamese wings.

 

Despite this setback, Steve sewed all his tigers with the French wings anyways and his team started calling him "Frenchy" from then on.

[SaigonSVFan95]

You know, I've never really noticed how closely the Vietnamese and French jump wings look alike. Shouldn't be surprising since we all know Vietnam's colonial history, but still, it's rather interesting.

[doyler]

The various Laotian and Cambodian wings are similiar as well.A lot of the Former French Colonies have wings that are base on the Fench badge.Many of the African Countries also had the basic French design.

[doyler]

Here is a set on a SF Sgts JCRC jacket from around 1970-71

 

[doyler]

THe wings on a basic ARVN jump wing are not as open and more up swept than the typical ones seen worn by the Vietnamese LLDB(SF) and US SF personel.

[bryang]

Zaire (central Africa) jump wings (Zaire is now called "the Democratic Republic of Congo")

[Rolf]

Actual Vietnamese wings and an American wearing them

[gwb123]

Great story! Makes them all the more interesting and quite believable. Just when you thought you had thought you had heard everything about Vietnam era insignia!

[Bryant U.]

Really neat. Thanks for sharing.