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West Point 1970's Beast Barracks Liner


mars&thunder
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mars&thunder

Picked this up recently. It is a liner worn by the Firsties at West Point during Beast Barracks when the new cadets receive their basic training/introduction to the Academy. These were worn in the 1970's. They feature a shiny black enamel paint, West Point decals on the side, and a West Point brass crest on the front. This example had a 1978 headband. When I got this it was missing the crest but the hole for the threaded post for the crest was there, as well as scratches where the two pins/posts behind the wings are located (on cloth these pins/posts prevent rotation of the crest and are similar to what are on the back of modern DIs) and scratches/wear marks where the bottom point of the crest meets the liner. I added a period crest to return the liner to its as used configuration. I can't imagine many of these liners ever made it out into public hands.

 

Liner02.jpg.5747f02d2590947aebaf5ceadc688c7b.jpgLiner01.jpg.97ea877ac45f2f1958877af29ef9fa20.jpg

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This is a Cadre liner, note the Decal is for the shoulder patch of the Faculty and or Cadre (Any Regular Army EMs apart from the four Regular Army Combat units assigned to the Academy, the 1st Battalion 1st Infantry, the 4th Squadron, 1st Cavalry, the 1st Battalion 1st Artillery/Field Artillery and the 21st Engineer Battalion these being School Troops at the U.S. Military Academy West Point ) The Cadets shoulder patches and aforementioned seen  HERE, So curious that the Cadre would wear the Device on the front, thought at best if one was worn either an Enlistedman Service Cap Device, or if Officer, the Rank.

Here is a Cadet Liner from the mid 1960s, I imagine Black with Yellow Band and a USMA Service Cap Device, the one on your liner looks like a Shako device no?

 

post-34986-0-85609300-1548697032_thumb.jpg

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mars&thunder

Interesting observations. I tired to find an image that would resolve the differences, but not 100% successful. Here is an image from 1975. The liner in this image of a firstie at Beast Barracks has the larger crest. So they changed from the 1968 image you provided. Also doesn't have the side stripe - just plain black. The decal on the side is not clear enough to verify the design, but it looks an awful lot like the one on the liner image I attached in the original post but that's open for debate given the lack of clarity.

Firstie75.jpg.1a39451dc990a4d60f9d10b706c30649.jpg

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13 hours ago, mars&thunder said:

Interesting observations. I tired to find an image that would resolve the differences, but not 100% successful. Here is an image from 1975. The liner in this image of a firstie at Beast Barracks has the larger crest. So they changed from the 1968 image you provided. Also doesn't have the side stripe - just plain black. The decal on the side is not clear enough to verify the design, but it looks an awful lot like the one on the liner image I attached in the original post but that's open for debate given the lack of clarity.

Firstie75.jpg.1a39451dc990a4d60f9d10b706c30649.jpg

Welp that guy is a K-Det and that decal is a Cadre one, so one possibly is that despite them not being RA and only cadets still, is that these liners at this certain point were worn with that decal as a sign of authority during beast week.

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Just remembered that I have the 1961 Howitzer, stock and or yearly photos in the beginning of yearbook show the liner worn by upperclassmen during beast week or other field  training  as  one with either Service Cap Device or what looks like a decal of it, a little smaller then the device it seems, with Band (No color known cause photos are B/W) with no decals at sides.

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mars&thunder

So what we're learning is that the black helmet liner worn by the firsties (seniors) at New Cadet Barracks (Beast Barracks) while training the new cadets varied in certain details over time, including potentially stripes or no stripes, the size of the crest on the front of the helmet, and the decal or no decal on the side. If we get enough dated images, we could probably chart out the evolution of this. Anybody have a collection of USMA class annuals (The Howitzer) from 1960 - 1980? I looked at class of 72 and class of 75 and they seem to match the helmet originally posted ie: larger crest, no stripe, cadre decal (with decals on the side not 100% clear in pictures available in these annuals).

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  • 2 weeks later...
mars&thunder

Through a friend I got a shot of a firstie wearing a helmet liner from the Class of 1973 year book. It clearly shows that the helmet liner has the cadre decal, and not a cadet decal. In one shot you can see the cadet patch on the field jacket while the same individual has the cadre decal on the liner. So the original post showing the liner is an accurate example of this utilization/configuration which was in use in the early 1970's.

 

firstie02.jpg.ea801a23a0b713403074a1ce86a40b2c.jpgFirstie01.jpg.6ef10c1ea33018ec5a3dbcc0e446628d.jpg

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10 hours ago, mars&thunder said:

Through a friend I got a shot of a firstie wearing a helmet liner from the Class of 1973 year book. It clearly shows that the helmet liner has the cadre decal, and not a cadet decal. In one shot you can see the cadet patch on the field jacket while the same individual has the cadre decal on the liner. So the original post showing the liner is an accurate example of this utilization/configuration which was in use in the early 1970's.

 

firstie02.jpg.ea801a23a0b713403074a1ce86a40b2c.jpgFirstie01.jpg.6ef10c1ea33018ec5a3dbcc0e446628d.jpg

Thanks for that, very curious as to why the liners have that decal rather than the cadet one.

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