Thanks Cobra for the interesting information. Regards.

Looks fantastic! Great work. Thanks for sharing and your service. 

I have given up on that, absoulty nothing comes out of the goodwill anymore, they pick it and put it online. Its a total waste of time here. I go to the military shows and and look there. it saves a lot of time and gas money. You might pay a little more at times but its there. Trying to get that rare item any more with the internet is futile. At this point Im selling more than buying. I have three goodwill stores here and I can spend four hours and gas and come back with nothing. Estate sales are a joke,they price stuff through the roof and haul the same items from sale to sale. Yard sales are stuff that needs to go in the dumpster, The flea markets here are the same. More of an illegal market baby clothes and sneakers. I went to the flea market three times last year and its the same crap. So if your lucky than good luck. I'll pay $75.00 for that item you found for $35. and see who is saving money. Just my opinions here. Those days are history. Living in the 1980's. 

Clarifying my post from yesterday: the 1st Air Cav lighter is NOT an engraved-in-Vietnam Zippo done during the War. Rather it is a much, much rarer engraved-at-the-Zippo-factory lighter done during the War. Naturally, Zippo made all kinds of lighters during the many years of the Vietnam War, including thousands for Navy ships’ personnel with engraved insignia and full color enamel. But … and this is a huge BUT .. relatively few of them were engraved and enameled with a full color Combat Infantryman’s Badge (CIB).   Since this is a 1969 date-coded lighter it is possible that a soldier that served in our 1965 Dominican Republic incursion could have earned the CIB there. However, the 1st Cav wasn’t directly involved in that event. So this CIB is for Vietnam combat. The only way to make that 1st Air Cav lighter even rarer would be to have the word “Vietnam” engraved at the factory as well. It is, nonetheless, at $233 on eBay now and still has three and a half days until bids close.   Summary: So, yes, this is an authentic Vietnam lighter; just not in the way we usually use that phrase. In fact, it is even rarer.

Another one for Stalag IIIA - 1st Lt. Willard Brown   He is also on a special German list of US officers who maintained high morale and discipline among the POWs on there 100+km forced marches to avoid the approaching Soviets.     

Is there any way to see the punched hole?    Could be that it lost its EGA, the helmet rusted and then someone added a mismatched EGA?    

Goodwills near me usually don't have anything good....but I don't usually check them as much. 

Hi Dave,   Welcome to the forum and you have asked some legitimate questions that I am sure you will get a lot of feedback on...   Looking forward to helping you along the way..   Best regards   Leigh