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1963-64 SEA made 23rd Special Warfare Aviation Detachment


kiaiokalewa
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kiaiokalewa

Again stepping outside of my norm Captain Reid's uniform shirts came my direction. I do find the earlier stuff to be of higher quality and I would suspect that this is not an easy patch to find on the lose a yet still on the uniform. I got lucky and land two. The possibilities are endless here.

 

First up a close up of one of the patches.

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kiaiokalewa

The shirts. One of Reid's shirt shows evidence of the removal of an 82nd Airborne patch on his right sleeve. I believe the 23rd SWAD had originated out of Fort Campbell and I think the 82nd was there during the early 60's.

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kiaiokalewa

Reid's Captain bars are hand embroidered. He sports Infantry branch insignia. There are two set of wings one is an aviator and the other is jump wings. Will post images of those later.

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Patchcollector

Some nice examples of some hard to find patches.They are "minty" and named as well.Congratulations!

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kiaiokalewa

Both shirts are basically identical but the other does not show right shoulder patch wear or removal like the one above.

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kiaiokalewa

Yes a great book. It does give a thumbnail sketch of all the Army Aviation units in Vietnam during the MAAG years.

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firefighter

That is an awesome set of books.As far as I know he only did two volumes.Both out of print and expensive.I always hope that more will come out.The book goes right down to PLT level on some units.

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kiaiokalewa

Thanks F&O for posting Reid's other shirts. Paints an interesting snap shot of this Captain. He served at Ft. Bragg with the 82nd and during the same time the 23rd SWAD was being organized there. He left with this unit in 1962 to VN. After the 23rd SWAD was deactivated in '63 he returns back to Ft. Bragg and wears the MACV SSI as his combat patch since he couldn't sport the Mohawk one. To bad it's a cool insignia.

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  • 4 years later...

Again stepping outside of my norm Captain Reid's uniform shirts came my direction. I do find the earlier stuff to be of higher quality and I would suspect that this is not an easy patch to find on the lose a yet still on the uniform. I got lucky and land two. The possibilities are endless here.

 

First up a close up of one of the patches.

 

Hey there. Did the 23rd SWAD have berets? If so, what color were they?

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