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Badges, Tabs, and Doodads
In the Army, one wears the badges, tabs, and doodads on one’s uniform. It kind of tells people where you’re at, where you come from, and what you’ve done.
When two Army guys meet, there’s an immediate assessment of each on the other according to his badges, tabs, and doodads. This immediate, line-of-sight sizing up is officially known as “butt-sniffing.”
On the right sleeve, you wear the patch of whichever unit you’ve been to combat with; if you’ve been to combat with multiple units, you pick whichever you want (usually, it’s the one that will give you the best props during butt-sniffing). On the left sleeve, you wear the patch of the unit to which you are currently assigned. Also on the left sleeve, one wears (up to three, only) the tabs to which one is entitled to wear through the application of blood, sweat, and tears. There’s the Ranger tab (Hoowah!), the Special Forces tab (we’re pulling down max per diem for this gig, right?), the Airborne tab (All The Way!), and the Sapper tab (I know nothing about this tab, but I think it’s suspect).
Esoterica: If one is airborne qualified, one wears his airborne badge on his chest, which badge is dependent upon one’s jumping experience. There’s the parachutist badge, the senior parachutist badge, and the master parachutist badge (otherwise known as the “master blaster”). The airborne tab on one’s sleeve denotes that one is currently assigned to an airborne unit. So, one can be airborne qualified, but not in an airborne unit, in which case one only wears the badge. One can be a dirty, nasty leg (i.e., non-airborne qualified) but assigned to an airborne unit, in which case one wears the tab. If you got both, you wear both.
Other badges one may see on the butt-sniffee one is assessing are the Combat Infantryman’s Badge (a musket with a wreath around it), the Expert Infantryman’s badge (just a musket), the Combat Diver badge (Waves, tides, and currents shall not affect the combat diver! Your last breath of air is like no breath at all!), The HALO badge (High Altitude/Low Opening jump), the Combat Action Badge (I’m not an Infantryman, but I got shot at), and the Pathfinder badge (also know as the patch-finder badge). And by the way, may I just mention that if one graduates from the Special Forces Qualification Course, one is a qualified and certified pathfinder, but one does not get to wear the purty badge. That’s because Infantrymen are chauvinists.
On the combat duty uniform (BDU, ACU, multi-cam, spectral cam; they’re changing uniforms so fast, on can hardly keep up), all of the “badges” are cloth images, sewn onto the left side of the chest (of the tunic; you hardly ever have to sew the badge onto your actual chest anymore).
If one is an overachiever (or a masochist), one can earn the right to wear the Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces tabs stacked up on one’s left sleeve. This display is known colloquially as the “tower of power.”
After 9/11, Special Operations Forces became famous for wearing ball caps. First, ya can’t wear a Kevlar/MICH/ACH helmet all day, every day on a long-term deployment (well, unless you’re Big Army, then suck it up, buttercup). Too, the initial ball caps made a statement. Most were NYPD, FDNY, or Yankees ball caps. You want to mess with us? Americans? Okay, doom on you. ‘Mericans being the blessed capitalists that they are, there soon became suppliers for ball caps with Velcro on the front (to put the badge, tab, or doodad of choice on), a long strip of Velcro on the back (for a name tape or a blood-type tape), and a wee square of Velcro on the top (for a swatch of GLINT tape, so the AC-130 knows who not to kill).
I’m done with that now. No more badges, no more tabs, no more doodads. No more butt-sniffing–threat assessments in the Walmart parking lot as to who is and isn’t a threat isn’t butt-sniffing.
It’s time for me to chill out.*
I still have an affinity for ball caps, though.
But I found the perfect tab for me, now. So I’ll walk around proudly wearing this, instead of the tower of power (which I’d never do on a ball cap, anyway, on accounta that’s kind of douche-y).
*Yeah. I know. Husha yo mouf.
Published in General
I was an Officer’s Spouse and I always felt weird and somehow a little guilty when they saluted me.
Good; that’s outstanding @TBA. I could never stand the spouses who thought they wore the same rank as their spouse.
The first base my wife was stationed at – Davis-Monthan – had a spot by the O Club for the base commander and some other brass, but also a space reserved, “Any 2nd Lieutenant”.
I don’t remember if the decal was an officer’s decal, but it gave me permission to park near the flight line (or pretty much anywhere else, for that matter.) That I needed. It could be that the color was rare enough that the noob just saluted it to be on the safe side.
I have a badge. Or perhaps it’s a doodad. Or even a ribbon? It’s this one:
I recall that if the sunlight was juussst right, a green decal could appear blue. That may be why they saluted you, to be (as you say) on the safe side.
I saluted a few times when I wasn’t sure if the decal was green or blue.
@she, you know how much mayhem one can engender with knitting needles? Carrying knitting needles deserves its own badge.
The Royal Order of the Scrambling of the Temporal Lobe.
Oh, so true. Beware of any woman (or anything else) who carries five double-pointed sharp sticks, and knows how to put them to good use simultaneously and at the same time.
I’m always gobsmacked when I sail through TSA checkpoints and onto planes with my circular needles, too. Two sharp bamboo, wood or metal ends, with points, each about six inches long, joined by a nylon or steel flexible cable, usually anywhere between 16 and 40 inches in length, total. Ummm . . .
My aunt got prevented from bringing her knitting bag into a free concert at West Point after 9/11. The Army was afraid that a little old lady was going to hijack a military academy – with knitting needles.
She could have done it, too. She had a mean flèche.
My son just got a promotion and I took his dress blues into the local Army-Navy store this morning for an upgrade. The seamstress there has a son in the Corps and she quickly gathered everything she knew he was going to need. New chevrons, NCO bloodstripe and new belt buckle.
She and her husband run this store and can take care of anyone in any service at any rank. They also deal in military memorabilia so we walked around the store a bit after settling up the bill. In one room is all the brass. And I use that term very loosely. It’s shiny, but it’s not all that impressive up close.
I was looking at a set of collar buttons for the Army Signal Corps, drawn to them primarily because I own a set that belonged to my grandfather that adorned his dough boy wools during WWI. Only his were real brass. You have to take polish to that stuff to make it shine. Modern gear looks fake and plastic.
Outstanding. Please convey congratulations from all of us.
One of the things I loved about being stationed at Ft. Bragg. You could get notified at PT formation (0630) that you’ve got a full Class A inspection at 1300, and take your stuff to the little Korean lady down the street and have our schtuff squared away when you dropped at by during lunch.
Thanks. He just came back from his ATI and was the senior member of his unit sent out and his first as an NCO. He came home and bragged about how well “his” Marines had done. To watch him mature and grow into a leadership role has been a pleasure for this proud father.
Being in the reserves for the last half of my career, I had to look hard to find people to trust with tailoring uniforms. What I learned explained a lot of what I saw on army and air force bases. The Marines really pay a lot of attention to tailoring. The service uniform must be fitted exactly, and all the vents and pockets have to be straight as worn by the individual. I always wondered how the army people got away with such sloppy uniforms, and it’s because they don’t care at the highest levels.
I learned this when I tried a few army tailors and asked them to adjust the pockets and the vent on a new Marine service uniform (the green ones) and the tailors looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. To a man they explained that they only ever adjust hems, waists, and sleeve lengths.
It reminded me of when the air force considered switching to a Marine style choker uniform. The air force chief of staff and friends modeled the uniforms for an official introduction. It shocked me that even such lofty ranks in the air force would have absolutely no awareness of how bad they looked, with belts the wrong length, bunching under the belts, etc. It was shameful, and they were completely unaware.
It just highlighted that Marines look good in their uniforms for a reason: They have the sense to have good tailors.
Yeah, I travel through O’Hare quite a bit and I see a lot of new Swabbies with a ribbon for completing boot at Great Lakes. Drives my boy up the wall.
My great uncle was a career marine officer. His LtCol oak leaves were sterling silver. When I was a Cdr I got to wear them. The new ones aren’t plastic; some kind of pot metal with a placticized finish.
At Ft. Bliss in 1980, I actually saluted one of those guys. From his look when I did, he was apparently not an officer.
I took a class in Quantico for 5 months in 2004 and a ROK Marine 2dLt was in our class, and in fact sat right next to me. One day he decided to wear our uniform, including the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor emblem on the pocket, and used our rank insignia on his collar. I made it clear to him that he was to remove the rank insignia immediately and go back to his quarters at once and change his uniform. That’s not something I tolerate. Those are earned.
Yeah. But TSA took away my moms 2 inch long Solingen sowing scissors that she had used for decades in her needle point, because everyone knows 80 yo Eastern European women are a major threat to airline safety.
Well, I saw people in the AF get a medal for improving the wait time for appointments in the outpatient clinics.
The fun part was how they did. Wait times were going out 60, 80, 90 days for appointments.
So to fix that, you could only make appointments 30 days out, max. You had to call the 1st of the month and get an appointment before they ran out. If not you had to wait till the next month, and try again. And again. And Again.
So, average wait time was brought down to 30 days,
and medals were awarded.
(PS. This is how Government Health Care works).
They learned at the knee of the Masters.
Are we thinking trip to the continent, day at the beach, sparring at the dojo or a bit of all three?
Bet it was a tough decision, but I’m happy for you (and your family), Boss.
One of my nephews just got back from another ROTC summer training and is getting ready for his last year college before stepping into full-time Army right behind you. Not sure yet what he and the army will decide he will be. I asked him one time about why he decided to sign up. His answer was a very quiet, “I think it would be good for everyone to spend a few years at least serving the country.” God bless him.
And so it goes. One American generation stepping up knowing others (like those from families here on Ricochet) will follow behind them.
Blessings on you, Boss.
I never served, but I still laughed out loud.
Non sequitur:
I was in a class in college, and for a French class, we had to do a show and tell – basically, talk about a hobby or an interest you have, in French. Whee.
Some guy came in, and pulled out a Gibson guitar, and played a little bit. He said it was a “Gibson SG”, and my hand shot up and asked “What’s SG stand for?”, and he said “I don’t know”, and I said “Doesn’t it mean ‘Standard Guy’?”, and he responded with silence.
I climbed to the pinnacle of comedic achievement deftly, with nary a slip of the foot, a sure-footed ascent that leaves smaller, lesser goats tumbling catastrophically to their deaths in the Chasm of Failed Comedics.
Anyway, your “Regular Guy” cap reminds me of the “Standard Guy” thing. And then I typed this.
C
This visual is cracking me up.
Don’t even have those anymore.
Meh, I only got to show off when I wore blues. Those I only wore for Promotion (once), SOS (a couple of times), Pilot Training (Twice), Two official Photos, and Retirement. Once Post Retirement to retire a buddy.
Maybe 9 times on active duty?
Other than that, this is all I had.
Tell us civilians about it, @instugator, if you would. Wings for a pilot?
Right, they finally put into policy what the anti-terrorist experts had been telling us for decades: Decals on cars did nothing to improve security, but were very effective at identifying who was in the military, especially when Colonel/Captain eagles or General/Admiral stars were accompanying the sticker. The base sticker was nothing more than advertisement for kidnappers. I’m glad they stopped requiring them. At least the military understands when something is just security theater now.
In the 1980’s I remember a political cartoon in the Navy Times showing a Marine and a Army Soldier comparing ribbons. (Back then, the Navy Times served the Marine Corps as well.)
The implied message was that the Army was much more generous with their ribbons and medals. It was a criticism of the Army not the Marines.
It’s been a couple of decades, but the Air Force had a medals scandal where they awarded a few Silver Stars to enlisted personnel that had not been in actual combat. It was an air crew that had sent a pilot into combat. The Air Force has a motivation problem when it comes to their enlisted personnel who don’t go into combat (there are rare exceptions that prove the rule).
In other countries, veterans who are no longer serving often wear their medals with their civilian clothes during their veteran days celebrations. Americans, iin general, have not developed that habit.
Napoleon is quoted as saying, “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.”
Could it be that you butt sniffers are being played?