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Fatigue Uniforms, Part 3, US Army Subdued


gwb123
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This was a Manion's purchase that had me scratching my head. The branch of service insignia is for the Women's Army Corps. And parachute rigging was a specialty available for female soldiers. But by the 1980's (or even the mid-1970's) I'm surprised this officer would not have been assigned to the Quartermaster branch.

 

The other odd thing about this uniform is rigger wings but no basic jump wings. In my time you couldn't be rigger qualified without going to jump school first but I wonder if perhaps at this time you could wear one or the other but not both?

 

We did have a "leg" (non-airborne qualified) rigger in my National Guard unit, 5/19th SFG though. He'd been trained as an enlisted parachute rigger in the Navy but the Navy doesn't require its riggers to go to jump school, so he wore the rigger patch but no jump wings. IIRC they got him jump qualified pretty quickly.

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124th ARCOM with 92nd Avn Co (ASH), another Manion's purchase. Color pocket patches were rare for the active duty units, but were sometimes seen on National Guard and Reserve uniforms.

 

This WO1 uniform is interesting: CIB but no aviator wings. I wonder if this Warrant was a former enlisted infantryman who worked in one of the non-aviation Warrant Officer specialties? If this was an Aviation unit I would guess perhaps maintenance, as there were a lot of maintenance warrant positions.

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Note that only a couple of the enlisted uniform shirts have sew-on rank. This jibes with my recollection. I joined the Army in 1980 when we still had the green fatigues and from what I recall even the drill sergeants at Fort Benning rarely had sew-on rank, preferring the pin-on metal collar rank insignia. OTOH it was rare to see an officer with pin-on rank.

 

By the mid 1980's we had switched to BDUs and from that point on, enlisted sew-on rank was very common. I started sewing my rank on when I made SP/4 (as it was still called then) and wore sew-on rank until I retired in 2005 as an E-7/SFC.

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1969 was the final year for colored insignia authorised on fatigues or work clothes.

Final date to change over was in the fall, as I recall.

About a year's notice was publshed on the change.

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1969 was the final year for colored insignia authorised on fatigues or work clothes.

Final date to change over was in the fall, as I recall.

About a year's notice was publshed on the change.

July 1970 is when I recall all insignia on work and field clothing was to be subdued Army-wide. I saw color insignia at Ft. MacArthur, CA up until then. One soldier I remember in particular wore his full color SSI, rank chevrons and Imjin Scout pocket patch from Korea (he had a 2d ID "combat patch") right up until then. I didn't get my subdued belt buckle until around Aug or Sep of 1970 after I arrived overseas and wore the bright brass one with fatigues till then.

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I was never quite sure what this was due to it's dark color. It is possible it is a custom made shirt, with direct embroidery. Curiously, it did not have any unit patches.

Several companies offered direct embroidery on the fatigues, besides Asian tailors. When I first got to Hood in 82 my company commander had all embroidered insignia on his OG's. I believe US Cav Store also offered it as an option.

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Several companies offered direct embroidery on the fatigues, besides Asian tailors. When I first got to Hood in 82 my company commander had all embroidered insignia on his OG's. I believe US Cav Store also offered it as an option.

I had an old US Cav store catalog from about 1982 that showed the offering direct embroidery on BDU's as well. However I never actually saw anyone wearing direct embroidered BDUs and I'm pretty sure the army prohibited it by then.

 

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Several companies offered direct embroidery on the fatigues, besides Asian tailors. When I first got to Hood in 82 my company commander had all embroidered insignia on his OG's. I believe US Cav Store also offered it as an option.

 

Yes, I remember those. But the color of the fabric on this one made it look more like something made in Korea. I think the CAV store used standard Army fatigues.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Here are a couple I found for $1 apiece at a local flea market in Fort Valley, Georgia. Fort Valley is the home to the 421st Quartermaster Company (Aerial Delivery), an Army Reserve parachute rigging unit. When I took the shirts up to pay for them, the guy that owned the place said he had some of his insignia if I was interested, so of course I said yes. He dug around and found me a cigar box full of N. S. Meyer carded full color and subdued Parachute Rigger badges, subdued Combat Infantryman Badges and subdued U.S. Army tapes along with several unopened pin on subdued CIB's and Basic Jump Wings and some pin on subdued Sergeant and PFC chevrons and 82nd Airborne and 81st Division SSI's, all for $1 for the whole box.

 

The first shirt is an OG-107 but does not include the Parachute Rigger badge and has no sign there was ever one on it.

post-1761-0-46715300-1452607296.jpg

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Sean can these two guys, Miller and Respress be traced to your sources for the 3rd Bde 82nd Abn Div?

Miller would be doubtful because it's such a common name. Respress possibly. About the only way I would have to trace it would be to individually look through all of my general orders for the name which would be very time consuming.

 

One way I might have been able to do it in the past would be to go to the courthouse in Peach County, Georgia where I found the Respress shirts and look through the recorded discharges for that name. That wouldn't be too difficult as they have alphabetical indexes. However, the dockets where the discharges are recorded are no longer public records. Officially, the law was changed a few years ago to protect the identifying information of the soldiers since the DD-214's have name, date of birth and social security numbers, all that is needed for identity theft. So that's probably a good idea. Unofficially, what I have heard is that some of our legislators were caught imbellishing their military service and others were afraid if their discharges were publicly available they may be caught too.

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Miller would be doubtful because it's such a common name. Respress possibly. About the only way I would have to trace it would be to individually look through all of my general orders for the name which would be very time consuming.

 

One way I might have been able to do it in the past would be to go to the courthouse in Peach County, Georgia where I found the Respress shirts and look through the recorded discharges for that name. That wouldn't be too difficult as they have alphabetical indexes. However, the dockets where the discharges are recorded are no longer public records. Officially, the law was changed a few years ago to protect the identifying information of the soldiers since the DD-214's have name, date of birth and social security numbers, all that is needed for identity theft. So that's probably a good idea. Unofficially, what I have heard is that some of our legislators were caught imbellishing their military service and others were afraid if their discharges were publicly available they may be caught too.

Right Sean, too bad no rank insignia was present, that could of helped to a drgree with out right google searches using the rank surname and 3rd Brigade 82nd Airborne Division Vietnam shots.

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Right Sean, too bad no rank insignia was present, that could of helped to a drgree with out right google searches using the rank surname and 3rd Brigade 82nd Airborne Division Vietnam shots.

The cigar box of insignia I got with the shirts included carded PFC and E-5 Sergeant subdued pin on chevrons. That would mean he was most likely a PFC, Specialist 4 or Sergeant in Vietnam. Not too hard to pin down. Being jump qualified, he probably served with the 82nd early in its deployment to Vietnam since they didn't get too many jump qualified junior enlisted men after the brigade transitioned to light infantry in May 1968. On the other hand, I know of several guys who served as leg replacements in the 82nd in Vietnam who got so fired up by some of the jump qualified guys they served with that they went to jump school later after they returned from Vietnam and in one case with a guy in my father's company, he somehow went to the Vietnamese jump school and earned his jump wings, and presumably Vietnamese wings as well, on his R&R while serving in Vietnam. Even if it was no longer a fully airborne unit in fact, most guys I have spoken to said it was fully airborne in spirit. Every saluting soldier was expected to shout "Airborne!" to which the soldier returning the salute would respond "All The Way!"

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post-467-0-46688700-1453033181.jpg

 

PX purchase Wash&Wear OG-507 type shirt. Belonged to an air cavalry officer of D-3/4cav of the 25th ID. I wish I had his Nomex and jungle uniforms!

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post-467-0-58998900-1453033497.jpg

 

Army Caribou pilot of the 92nd Avn Co. Part of a grouping of two plaques and a binder. I missed his MA-1 flight jacket when he was assigned to the JFK Special Warfare Center.

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  • 5 years later...
Amateur Vietnam Collector
On 12/16/2015 at 9:16 AM, atb said:

July 1970 is when I recall all insignia on work and field clothing was to be subdued Army-wide. I saw color insignia at Ft. MacArthur, CA up until then. One soldier I remember in particular wore his full color SSI, rank chevrons and Imjin Scout pocket patch from Korea (he had a 2d ID "combat patch") right up until then. I didn't get my subdued belt buckle until around Aug or Sep of 1970 after I arrived overseas and wore the bright brass one with fatigues till then.

Hi All,

Before reading this post, I thought insignia were ordered to be subdued in summer 1966 according to this website: https://www.mooremilitaria.com/insignia-and-headgear.html

So, it appears the info on the website is incorrect.  I am happy about that, because  I am mildly interested in this uniform on eBay right now (pictures below).  The uniform is dated 1969.  I thought it strange that the name tape is white and the insignia are in full color, based on my previous knowledge.  Now that I know that the full transition didn’t occur until 1970 helps me understand why.  Am I correct in my understanding?

3327AB84-C6ED-4C1A-A027-1B7F46A62D60.png

517BD56F-F6A6-42CD-94F1-F9109B422D02.png

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5 hours ago, Amateur Vietnam Collector said:

Hi All,

Before reading this post, I thought insignia were ordered to be subdued in summer 1966 according to this website: https://www.mooremilitaria.com/insignia-and-headgear.html

So, it appears the info on the website is incorrect.  I am happy about that, because  I am mildly interested in this uniform on eBay right now (pictures below).  The uniform is dated 1969.  I thought it strange that the name tape is white and the insignia are in full color, based on my previous knowledge.  Now that I know that the full transition didn’t occur until 1970 helps me understand why.  Am I correct in my understanding?

3327AB84-C6ED-4C1A-A027-1B7F46A62D60.png

517BD56F-F6A6-42CD-94F1-F9109B422D02.png

That Summer 1966 actually pertains only to South Vietnam units, the rest of the Army mirly switches out the White Name Tape for the Subdued ones, but retains the rest in full color.

 

This 1969 dated SF coat you posted, hard to tell, that White NAME Tape and Full Color U.S. ARMY Tape at this late date of 1969-1970 will be most irregular.

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Rereading what I wrote in 2015, it is not as clear as it should be that the July 1970 date was when the insignia had to be subdued. 1966-1970 was a period of transition leading up to that goal. Various mixtures of color and subdued insignia could be be seen on fatigue and combat clothing.

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3 hours ago, patches said:

That Summer 1966 actually pertains only to South Vietnam units, the rest of the Army mirly switches out the White Name Tape for the Subdued ones, but retains the rest in full color.

 

This 1969 dated SF coat you posted, hard to tell, that White NAME Tape and Full Color U.S. ARMY Tape at this late date of 1969-1970 will be most irregular.

Here's a nice Transitional Shirt from a SF Sarge of the JFK Warfare Center Ft Bragg posted by member MattS.

post-32676-1329757084.jpg

post-32676-1329757120.jpg

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Amateur Vietnam Collector
22 hours ago, patches said:

Here's a nice Transitional Shirt from a SF Sarge of the JFK Warfare Center Ft Bragg posted by member MattS.

post-32676-1329757084.jpg

post-32676-1329757120.jpg

Thank you very much, Patches.  That clears it up for me.  The uniform from the JFK center is incredible.  That’s the kind of uniform I’m looking for, but I’m finding it doesn’t exist on the market or, if it does, I’m going to have to pay an arm and a leg for it.

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