A humble thank you for the kind words. It was honestly dumb luck that I learned of the medal. The credit goes to my work volunteer who asked to see a different medal in the numismatic collection and this one was brought out with it. We both went "what is THAT?!?!" I opted to write this article, while he is working on another Medal of Honor story that is even more amazing than this one. Stay tuned!

Marstar in Canada also sold these previously (sold out)  

In this case the medal remains federal property. My understanding of the law is IF the medal is gifted and absolutely nothing is exchanged - and this is documented as a pure gift - then legally you can own the medal/ribbon/rosette/case. If, however, you acquire any aspect of the medal in exchange for something then you are in violation of federal law. I am not, however a lawyer, so take what I say with a salt mine!

Original wood panels are available ex-Greece and Italy, but they've all been sanded smooth and look...well...yeah. Cost is about $30 a pair, with escutcheon and screw.   Original USGI plastic/phenolic grips are very easy to obtain currently, or Eickhorn Greek contract ones. I picked up 3 pair recently with screw for $25 a pair.

Did Remington make a MILLED stacking swivel (pre-A3) that instead of the usual rounded ends to the cut section had simply square cut ends? I received one recently, on a Rem upper band. It is not a cut standard swivel as it is the narrow width. It is full parkerised. See pic - its the exact item I received. The wear would seems to indicate they've been married a long time (now divorced, as I put it on an SA 18 restoration) Did Rem at the end simply not round over? Or is this a bogus stacking swivel made from something else? 

Do any of you think there would be a market for smooth black walnut grips made for the early Springfield and Rock Islands?   I have a number of scales made from black walnut, an unknown old, thick barn wood beam, some olive from Israel, and various exotic woods. Mostly planning just to use on later Greek or unmarked, suspected German, M1's that came bare, had pretty rough grips, or that I've used the internals from. It's just something that I've been working on to make them look nice, along with sharpening some of my extras.. Working on a few leather scabbards for those and for a few really rough M5A1s converted to more of a trench knife. Some with wood handles, some with stacked leather. (Stacked leather also looks nice on an M7, but they're still functional.)   It would just be an occasional hobby and done with hand tools. No mass production, but I could maybe leave them a little thick for personal modification or possibly study an original set if I ever get one. I just wouldn't like to see anyone claiming something I made as an original to con somebody. Having a nice, properly sized smooth grip could also help avoid that possibly. Any decent looking & fitting early grips are hard to find in wood, Bakelite, or plastic repro. 

I was quite excited to see this nylon ‘butt pack’ at a local yard sale, thinking it was an M67; imagine my disappointment when I discovered it was ‘only’ a “TRAINING” version; which leads to this post: Why, and to whom, were these “FIELD PACK, TRAINING” issued?  They were quite common in the pawn shops and flea markets around Ft. Bragg in the 1990’s, though the ones I remember seeing mostly were of lightweight nylon and had no eyelets on the flap.  This particular one is fairly heavy nylon, and is closer to the M67 than most I’ve encountered.  I can’t recall ever seeing anyone wearing them on their LBE, nor have I heard of them being issued.  By the time I joined in 1978, the “Butt Packs” were no longer issued (at least not at the CIF’s at Benning or Bragg), though I and many others purchased them from local surplus / pawn shops and attached them to our LBE when permitted (some commanders were adverse to customized Load Bearing Equipment, for some odd reason).

108th Airborne Division on the wall of the 518th Airborne Regiment HQ in Charlotte, NC, 1950.

hello, I would concur with this assessment.  cheers!

The Border Patrol is much in the news lately. Here’s their badge from January 2025’s Inauguration:     One of the nice features of collecting Inauguration badges is that they most usually have a short and defined period of wear, so there are no problems with them being considered as being for current use.