ACU with US Navy Tape

[Nkomo]

I picked this up this weekend at a local surplus shop. I picked up my first ACU jacket yesterday. This one was odd to say in the least. It had a ACU US NAVY tape on the chest. I asked the seller where this came from. He told me that a guy brought it in and he thought it was odd as well. I have never known this seller to ever make up a story. He is as honest as the day is long. Any idea on this one guys?

 

I did a little research and found out that some US Navy sailors were attached to US Army units. Furthermore, they did wear US Army uniforms. The article I saw was one that had the US Navy sailors assigned to US Army Civil Affairs and Psy Ops units.

[Nkomo]

Here is a link to an article about some US Navy sailors attached to the 414th Civil Affairs Battalion’s Headquarters Company.

http://www.cusnc.navy.mil/articles/2006/149.html

 

Here is a picture of a US Navy sailor dressed in ACU's. The caption reads:

060817-N-8623S-001 CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq - Electrical Technician 1st Class (SW) Brian Pintello, a native of Dallas, patrols an area of Al-Shu’llah, Iraq in support of a civil affairs mission. Pintello is an individual augmentee attached to the 414th Civil Affairs Battalion’s Headquarters Company. Official U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Daniel Sanford Official U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Daniel Sanford

[swag]

A lot of the Navy personnel over here that I've seen are either Seabee's or part of the Reconstruction Transition Teams (or something to that effect). Most of them I've seen though have worn the DCU's. I don't recall ever seeing one in an ACU, but I've only seen a handful of them.

[hawkdriver]

A lot of the route clearance teams in the marine sector were Navy while I was there. I once recall seeing a picture of a Navy EOD wearing a Army ACU.

[gpw_42]

There were sailors in Ramadi in '07, wearing ACUs. Interesting, b/c they were working for Army units; but Ramadi was in a province (Al Anbar) run by Marines...they provided a great service maintaining radio gear. I was able to obtain the uniform of the PO1(?...E-6) who worked with my BN. Good guy, and we enjoyed talking inter-service smack to each other.

 

He had worked with 1st Armored Division (Old Ironsides) before we arrived. During that time, had an in-country patch made up which had the sailing ship "Old Ironsides" instead of the cannon and tracks in the center. Pretty neat...but he only had one, and rightfully didn't want to part with it.

 

Thrasher

[hawkdriver]

This war has greyed the lines of normalcy. We have guys that were attached to the Marine MEFs and now wear Marine Corp combat patches. There are Air Force guys that are wearing Army CABs. I can see that in a few years, no one will be able to dispute anything because anything seems to go these days.

[TS Allen]

Speaking of strange patches, I have seen an Army ACU with Marine Corps patches on it. In use, actually.

 

I'm a JROTC cadet and last year for the State Drill Meet color guard competition our judge was a CSM (ret., of course). I guess the CSM had served with 1st MARDIV in Vietnam and ended up serving in the Army for some reason, retiring way up there in the ranks. When we finished our routine and walked out of the box its a good thing he failed to debrief us, because I know that my front rifle guard (who graduated last year and is now enlisted in the Marines, of course) would have made some stupid remark about the hilarity of an ACU-subdued, velcro-backed Marine shoulder patch. And that would have cost us.

 

~TS

[hawkdriver]

In my battalion, I have two guys wearing the 1st Marine combat patch, and now we have three MEF combat patche wearers. MEDEVAC guys that covered down on the Marines in the Anbar province get to wear MEF patches. Not uncommon anymore.

[Polygon]

Nice find!

[GIKyle]

We have Navy guys assigned to 1-502 that do a very neat but classified mission. We have two in the Battalion who work together and go between three companies in the Battalion sector. They wear ACUs, with Navy Tapes, and Navy Rank on their chest and hat.... Oh, they also wear the Screaming Eagle patch!

 

Kyle

[PATCHRAT]

Looks like you have plenty of first hand account of Navy personnel wearing Army ACU's so let me add one more. While assigned to 4 ID in Baghdad 2005-2006 I had the pleasure/privilege of having five extremely well trained and knowledgeable Navy reservists assigned to my section in the G2. They arrived wearing DCU's, but we put them ACU's with appropriate US NAVY tape, rank and our 4 ID SSI. There were other Navy personnel working in the HQ which also wore ACU's. TOM

[sigsaye]

Looks like you have plenty of first hand account of Navy personnel wearing Army ACU's so let me add one more. While assigned to 4 ID in Baghdad 2005-2006 I had the pleasure/privilege of having five extremely well trained and knowledgeable Navy reservists assigned to my section in the G2. They arrived wearing DCU's, but we put them ACU's with appropriate US NAVY tape, rank and our 4 ID SSI. There were other Navy personnel working in the HQ which also wore ACU's. TOM

When Navy folks are assigned in country, they go through training with the Army and are issued DCUs. If they stay with Navy units or mixed groups, they stay with the DCUs. If they are assigned as individuals to other service units such as mentioned here, they tend to wear what every one else is wearing so as to not stand out in a group. Over the years and through various wars standing out in a group has proven to be unhealthy.

 

on the other hand, My sister did a tour in Faluja. She is a Navy Senior Chief (E-8). She was assigned to Naval Special Warfare (SEALS) in the Intel shop. A;ong with Navy support folks, Sea Bees, SEALS there were Marines. The Navy folks tended to not wear their jackets at all, just t-shirts (inside the wire ofcourse) which made the Marine MPs un happy.

 

Steve Hesson

[Dave]

I don't think anyone mentioned this yet, but the Navy has what they call "Individual Augmentees" (better known simply as an "IA"...a term that can be used to describe a person or can be used to describe their tasking). These are sailors who are selected (or sometimes volunteer) for an assignment in the GWOT, predominantly in Iraq, Afghanistan and Djibouti. They range from E-4 (the minimum rank) up to O-6...with the majority in the E-5 to E-7 category. They come from all rates...my command has a cook, a sonar tech, an engineman and a gunner's mate on IA. The latter is the only one doing something "in rate"...he is stationed at an ammo dump. The others are all being used as sentries at various locations in Iraq/Afghanistan. I just had another gunner's mate come back from Afghanistan/Iraq. He checked out with the command as he was detaching on orders to go push boots and during his week here he wore his ACUs, to include his 101st Air Assault combat SSI, and a current unit SSI from some intel unit (I didn't recognize what it was). An officer who recently returned from Afghanistan returned in her DCUs (she never had ACUs)...but she was at a predominately Navy facility. At any one time, Navy commands are allowed to have up to 10% of their unit on IA...so there are quite a few of these sailors around, thus meaning that ACUs with US NAVY nametapes will become more commonplace over the years.

 

Dave

[Dave]

And a few links to learn more...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_augmentee_policy

 

http://www.nps.edu/FFSC/Navigation/IndividualAugmentees.html

 

http://www.cnrsw.navy.mil/fsc/ia/index.asp

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=i...22individual+ag

 

Dave

[101combatvet]

Back around 2006 the Navy turned over a few hundred personel to do missions in Iraq under the DoA. I guess the Navy wanted a bigger piece of the pie. The Army put them through training before deployment, I believe most of them ended up on convoy duty. I was speaking to a guy from III Corps about it in 2007 and he told me that the program was cancelled or postponed because of the number of casualties that the Navy took. Apparently, they needed remedial training.... don't know what happened afterwards.

[Dave]

Back around 2006 the Navy turned over a few hundred personel to do missions in Iraq under the DoA. I guess the Navy wanted a bigger piece of the pie. The Army put them through training before deployment, I believe most of them ended up on convoy duty. I was speaking to a guy from III Corps about it in 2007 and he told me that the program was cancelled or postponed because of the number of casualties that the Navy took. Apparently, they needed remedial training.... don't know what happened afterwards.

 

They currently have about 12,000 sailors on IA...been expanded a bit since 2006.

 

Dave

[101combatvet]

I'm sure.... the Army offered a bunch of enlistment perks to Navy personel when they downsized a few years ago.... only a few takers.

 

They currently have about 12,000 sailors on IA...been expanded a bit since 2006.

 

Dave

[VolunteerArmoury]

There were a few sets and several photos of USN wearing ACUs. They were mainly under the IMA exhibit. Also as I just posted on another thread: I just noticed the USAF, USMC, & USN ACU rank insignia available at this website. Also Civilian & DAC but not USCG (which only differance from USN would be the CPOs ranks)

 

http://www.militaryclothing.com/IBS/Simple...-id/659871.html

 

http://www.militaryclothing.com/IBS/Simple...-id/659873.html

[VolunteerArmoury]

Speaking of strange patches, I have seen an Army ACU with Marine Corps patches on it. In use, actually.

 

I'm a JROTC cadet and last year for the State Drill Meet color guard competition our judge was a CSM (ret., of course). I guess the CSM had served with 1st MARDIV in Vietnam and ended up serving in the Army for some reason, retiring way up there in the ranks. When we finished our routine and walked out of the box its a good thing he failed to debrief us, because I know that my front rifle guard (who graduated last year and is now enlisted in the Marines, of course) would have made some stupid remark about the hilarity of an ACU-subdued, velcro-backed Marine shoulder patch. And that would have cost us.

 

~TS

 

According to Regs only WW2 USMC vets are authorized to wear USMC insignia and there are 6 different ones authorized for wear by US Army personel supporting or working with USMC. This site lists those 6

http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/Alpha/Ma...orpsFwtsSSI.htm

 

Also I know the Army has Individual Moblization Augmentees (IMA) and I'm sure the other branches do too in addition to the Navy. The Army has Drilling IMAs & just regular IMA. Army IMAs are often assigned to a unit and used to round out their TOE/MTOE according to what I've read when I looked into the program but that information was a while back. I know we still have IMAs though.

[SEABEEBRIAN]

I don't think anyone mentioned this yet, but the Navy has what they call "Individual Augmentees" (better known simply as an "IA"...a term that can be used to describe a person or can be used to describe their tasking). These are sailors who are selected (or sometimes volunteer) for an assignment in the GWOT, predominantly in Iraq, Afghanistan and Djibouti. They range from E-4 (the minimum rank) up to O-6...with the majority in the E-5 to E-7 category. They come from all rates...my command has a cook, a sonar tech, an engineman and a gunner's mate on IA. The latter is the only one doing something "in rate"...he is stationed at an ammo dump. The others are all being used as sentries at various locations in Iraq/Afghanistan. I just had another gunner's mate come back from Afghanistan/Iraq. He checked out with the command as he was detaching on orders to go push boots and during his week here he wore his ACUs, to include his 101st Air Assault combat SSI, and a current unit SSI from some intel unit (I didn't recognize what it was). An officer who recently returned from Afghanistan returned in her DCUs (she never had ACUs)...but she was at a predominately Navy facility. At any one time, Navy commands are allowed to have up to 10% of their unit on IA...so there are quite a few of these sailors around, thus meaning that ACUs with US NAVY nametapes will become more commonplace over the years.

 

Dave

 

As one of the IA order writers who sends members to theater, I second everything said except that we do send E-3's. The uniforms that the member is issued depends on the mission that is being supported. I have a set of ACU's with Navy nametapes, a set of DCU's and BDU's with Navy nametapes as well. There are very large numbers of sailors with army units. I will try to get a better number tomorrow.