Jump to content

US Army berets - blue, black, green, maroon, tan...


BEAST
 Share

Recommended Posts

General Bryan D. Brown, Commander of USSOCOM from 2 September 2003 to 9 July 2007. As an enlisted man, he graduated from the Special Forces course and served a tour with the Green Berets in Vietnam. Most of his commissioned service was with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment which he eventually commanded. Being somewhat color blind, I sometimes have a hard time distinguishing bewtween green berets and black berets. Which is this?

post-1761-0-51490700-1507898699_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Left to right:

 

General Wayne A. Downing Commander, USSOCOM 20 May 1993 to 29 February 1996

 

General Henry Hugh Shelton Commander, USSOCOM 29 February 1996 to 25 September 1997

 

General Joseph L. Votel Commander, USSOCOM 28 August 2014 to 30 March 2016

 

General Raymond A. Thomas III Commander, USSOCOM 30 March 2016 to Present

Thanks Sean

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_A._Downing

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Shelton

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Votel

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_A._Thomas

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

post-34986-0-28070600-1509855291_thumb.jpg

 

The Caption for foto

Special Forces soldiers receiving instruction aboard a U.S. Naval ship while conducting water insertion and demolition training off the coast of White Beach, Okinawa, Japan in 1956, wearing their green berets prior to their approved wear in 1961.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have posted a little bit about this under a different topic. The Army is developing a new type of unit, the Security Force Assistance Brigade with the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade already activated earlier this year and currently training at Fort Benning. The Facebook page for the 1st states as follows: "On order, 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade deploys in support of a combatant commander, integrates with foreign partner forces, assists and advises local security operations to build partner security capacity and capability to achieve regional security in support of U.S. national interests."

 

The members of the brigade are wearing a new SSI although I cannot find it on the Institute of Heraldry website.

 

Now it appears there is a move to allow the members of the Security Force Assistance Brigades to wear a green beret in a shade slightly lighter than the one worn by Special Forces. Because of the beret issue, the resemblance of the new SSI to the Special Forces SSI and the similarity in their missions, this is apparently causing some concern among Special Forces soldiers.

 

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/10/27/the-rumors-are-true-the-army-plans-to-issue-distinctive-berets-to-its-new-military-training-advisers/

 

http://www.sof.news/sfa/sfab-beret/

 

http://soldiersystems.net/2017/10/26/ask-ssd-is-there-a-new-sf-group/

post-1761-0-89890600-1510236984.jpeg

post-1761-0-35896100-1510236998.jpg

post-1761-0-40717700-1510237014.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apparently, Army Chief of Staff is now saying it will be a shade of brown, not green, as the above photo shows. He's definitely backpedaling, after all of the backlash.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apparently, Army Chief of Staff is now saying it will be a shade of brown, not green, as the above photo shows. He's definitely backpedaling, after all of the backlash.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apparently, Army Chief of Staff is now saying it will be a shade of brown, not green, as the above photo shows. He's definitely backpedaling, after all of the backlash.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

post-34986-0-28887500-1510541629.jpg

 

A GI of the D Troop 1st Squadron 4th Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division, with a Black one, circa late 1966 into early 1967, two thing pop up apart from the beret, one he's wearing Aircrewman wings below his CIB, could be another indication of these wings where awarded to door gunners, and D Troop was the squadron Air Cav Troop, and the second is he's wearing an early form of rank collar insignia, look like solid non voided Staff Sargent Beer Cans.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Interesting photo of a Tank Destroyer Crewman wearing a beret with the TD patch on it, unsure of the date.

 

6mE9GMs.jpg

An acquired British Royal Armored Corps beret we would suspect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
dutchmarines

Any ideas about this one? It appears to be a standard black beret but it looks like it has some sort of dark blue cloth square rather than a flash and a very large DUI. The picture was found on a vetfriends.com page for the 388th Medical Battalion. He also appears to have an armored triangle over his left breast pocket.

little bit late but the private wears a dutch cavalry beret from the regiment hussars of Boreel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

little bit late but the private wears a dutch cavalry beret from the regiment hussars of Boreel

post-1761-0-37770100-1445089220.jpgpost-34986-0-04106800-1515296749.jpg

 

 

Tanks for the ID, seems this was the same badge with blue cloth backing for all the Hussar units, just had different colored edges on the Blue square, yes?

 

 

The Dutch word for hussar is huzaar [ɦyˈzaːr].

Link to comment
Share on other sites

post-1761-0-37770100-1445089220.jpgattachicon.gifBaretembleem_Huzaren_van_Boreel.jpg Tanks for the ID, seems this was the same badge with blue cloth backing for all the Hussar units, just had different colored edges on the Blue square, yes? The Dutch word for hussar is huzaar [ɦyˈzaːr].

Looks like the soldier has an Armor triangle on his chest

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Infantryman of the 2nd Battalion 48th Infantry 3rd Armored Division sometime between 1972 and 1975. I'm assuming it was a mechanized infantry unit which indicates the wear of the black beret in the armored community was not limited to those with an Armor MOS. The DUI on the beret appears to be cloth.

post-1761-0-51125100-1515420609_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's another one of the same soldier from the previous post. This time he is wearing a metal DUI with some sort of octagonal shaped flash while the soldier on the right is only wearing the DUI.

post-1761-0-36282500-1515421417.jpg

post-1761-0-24322600-1515421429_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's one more which indicates the soldier was in a recon unit, so it's possible the beret was being worn because he was assigned to a recon unit rather than an armored unit.

post-1761-0-15534700-1515421643.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's one more which indicates the soldier was in a recon unit, so it's possible the beret was being worn because he was assigned to a recon unit rather than an armored unit.

An 11Bravo in a Mech Inf Recon Platoon! guess these were interspersed with those 11Delta guys.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Here is a good shot of the blue unassigned oval being worn on a black beret along with the yellow on black AIRBORNE tab as frequently seen during the Vietnam era. There is a thread on this oval on this forum that suggests it was worn in this manner by jump qualified infantrymen assigned to a non-airborne unit: http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/285898-unknown-airborne-oval/

 

We can't see what SSI this soldier is wearing but note he is wearing the Training Centers DUI suggesting he is possibly assigned as cadre with a basic training or AIT unit.

 

post-1761-0-64114600-1516714771.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is a good shot of the blue unassigned oval being worn on a black beret along with the yellow on black AIRBORNE tab as frequently seen during the Vietnam era. There is a thread on this oval on this forum that suggests it was worn in this manner by jump qualified infantrymen assigned to a non-airborne unit: http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/285898-unknown-airborne-oval/

 

We can't see what SSI this soldier is wearing but note he is wearing the Training Centers DUI suggesting he is possibly assigned as cadre with a basic training or AIT unit.

 

Isn't he one of those Shake & Bake's? Maybe doing a little extra training at the Ft Benning Basic Training units?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Isn't he one of those Shake & Bake's? Maybe doing a little extra training at the Ft Benning Basic Training units?

That's what I was thinking but without seeing his rank on his sleeve it's hard to say. When the soldiers in the Infantry NCO Candidate Course graduated Phase I, which was the classroom/field training portion conducted at Fort Benning, they were then assigned to basic or AIT units for Phase II as the on the job training portion of the course in which they served as squad leaders and I assume acted as sort of junior drill instructors. I know my father and many of the other guys from his NCO company who were airborne qualified were all assigned to an AIT unit at Fort Gordon, Georgia. As I understand it, Fort Gordon was where soldiers who indicated an initial preference for going to jump school were all sent for AIT, so it makes sense they would send airborne qualified NCOs to those training units. And I'm pretty sure the NCO candidates who served with these training units wore the Traning Centers DUIs.

 

Also note the weird orientation of his collar brass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is a good shot of the blue unassigned oval being worn on a black beret along with the yellow on black AIRBORNE tab as frequently seen during the Vietnam era. There is a thread on this oval on this forum that suggests it was worn in this manner by jump qualified infantrymen assigned to a non-airborne unit: http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/285898-unknown-airborne-oval/

 

We can't see what SSI this soldier is wearing but note he is wearing the Training Centers DUI suggesting he is possibly assigned as cadre with a basic training or AIT unit.

 

 

The darker blue oval discussed in the link is different than the one on the guy in your photo; I'm certain that the one in the photo was for the Airborne Dept at Ft Benning. I guess they would wear the Training Centers DUI?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...