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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
Thanks. Oh, wait. :)
See my correction above.
In the Navy the medal is awarded to anyone who served without some kind of punishment: court martial, NJP, or civilian. But I was pulling your leg about the Article 15. I would be shocked if you received one.
In the Navy it was four years (since changed to three). If you didn’t do the time you didn’t get the medal.
Back from the cool mountain air. I’m grabbing the chill out line and tying it off to the July list.
After seeing so many ‘me walls’ in the Army, a friend of mine actually filled his wall area with a tiny frame. Inside was his birth certificate. “I was born, alright? I’m here now!”
Unlikely. There would have to have been an adverse personnel action in your official file. That’s not something your 1SG would be able to swing without the connivance of your PAC NCO and other admin folks.
You mean I’ve been blaming my 1st Sergeant all these years? Sorry Sgt. Combs.
One of the nice developments in military justice in the 1980s was the introduction of the “summarized article 15”. This was a recognition that the old practice of company punishment had a place in the unit commanders tool kit. Unlike a real article 15, this never went beyond the orderly room. It was a way to sanction young soldiers guilty of doing “stupid stuff young soldiers do, by virtue of their being young soldiers”. No reduction in rank, no fines and I think you could restrict them to the post. Essentially punishment was extra duty. It was a great tool.
Love the Tower of Power
A birth certificate is the ultimate participation trophy.
As you should be. He doubtless cried himself to sleep every night over it. ;)
I wrote a post on Sgt. Brown (pseudonym) some time ago. Here is the gist.
In Germany in 1959, Sgt. Brown, a tough-as-nails black man with a southern accent, was mean to me. I was drafted and only wanted to get back to civilian life. Me and my buddies had contempt for lifers like Sgt. Brown. We figured they weren’t smart enough to make it in civilian life. After all, I had one year of Compton Junior College behind me. I knew all about Oxford commas and the Oedipus Complex. I’m sure Sgt. Brown didn’t know any of that.
Sgt. Brown occasionally called me a mother[expletive] young punk. I think he was just a sergeant being a sergeant. Or he might have been annoyed because he was sensing my usual anti-authoritarian vibes. At any rate, one day on bivouac, Sgt. Brown and I were in a makeshift shower together. I took a quick glance over and saw, to my horror, that Brown’s back was a mass of scar tissue and craters. It was ugly as hell, almost scary. Later, I asked our company commander about it (I was the C.O.’s driver for awhile). He said that Sgt Brown, a war hero with a Purple Heart, had been shot up in World War II.
I took a hard look inward and came to a terrible conclusion: Brown was a man’s man, and he was right about me: I was a mother[expletive] young punk. Today, some 60 years later, I still cringe with shame when I think about my epiphany.
I had many chances to apologize to Sgt. Brown. My shame turned me into a coward, and I never did apologize.
I can’t even imagine it. I really enjoyed the military, but I can’t imagine I would have been anything more than slightly cooperative with being drafted. I would have followed the law, I’m sure, but I doubt I would have been very helpful to anyone.
The draft is an abomination, and any society that can’t convince young men to fight has no right to exist.
There were half a dozen USMC Captains in my class at Fort Knox. At our class dining out, in July, they all wore their dress blue uniforms. Why didn’t they wear their summer white dress uniforms? Because the senior Marine Captain had conducted a dress white inspection and determined that one of his fellow Marines had gained enough weight to make his dress whites I’ll fitting. Therefore, they would all wear dress blues.
I got my GCM with a V Device due to a viscous paper cut.
Maybe you should try some blood thinner? :)
As a truck company commander I gave out a ton of these to drivers who were pulled by MPs for speeding (doing 12 mph in a 10 mph zone around the O-club for example) or other driving infractions in a deuce and a half truck. I always got a “reply by endorsement” from the Commanding General’s office asking what I was going to do with the citation. I would do a summary Article 15, assign 1-4 hours of extra duty(depending on the circumstances and speed) and then reply to the CG that I had given the driver and Article 15…which made a few eyes pop out at HQ. For something like 8 months I led the post in Article 15s…all summary that went into their field file and never made their(the driver) permanent record. As an added bonus, the 1SGT and I always had plenty of people for painting new lines (or repainting as the case may be and paint was available) or getting the grass cut and side walks edged in my company area. Wasn’t terribly popular as a CO, though…even if I really was looking out for my drivers…or at least I thought so.
Who has the time for that many NJP’s? That’s a lot of punishments for small things that ruin chances for promotion.
I was a First Sergeant of an MP Company. My commander made threats of mayhem over MP car accidents. When he turned to me and said what do you think? My reply was, if you’re not driving cars then you don’t have these problems. It’s always those doing work.
Nah. As @barryjones said, it goes in the field file; a promotion board never sees it. Takes about 10 minutes to do the paper work, five to run it past the JAG.
It’s a good way to say, “I am very disappointed in you, young man.” It’s quicker to fill out the form than the form for a negative counseling statement. And, for a borderline offense, you can state “if this happens again, the paperwork will be permanent, wwhich will have adverse effects on your chances of getting promoted. And, if it happens again, I’m not just taking away your down time putting you on the 1SG’s doo-doo list, I’m taking rank and pay.”
It’s a good tool for leadership, used properly.
You were and you should be content knowing you were.
Thanks! I thought so. I was an early and somewhat enthusiastic adopter. At the time anything other than a verbal counseling statement was VERY difficult to do and would go in their permanent file – which could and would prevent promotions and even re enlistments. Both my Top Soldier and I considered it a gift from above as way to deal with minor infractions and nudge young soldiers back onto the right path…plus Top was delighted at having so many hands to keep busy cleaning out the oil sump in the motor pool, the grease traps in the mess hall, cutting grass (he got rid of the power mower and obtained push mowers :)) edging sidewalks, etc.. The company area was a marvel to behold. I was just glad I had a tool that didn’t ruin potential good soldiers careers. I got thru my tour as a company commander with only a few Art 15s (the permanent kind) and was happy for it. Although I did refer one soldier for a court martial (BCD Special – he ended up getting chaptered out instead of a CM – which I opposed as I thought stealing from your fellow soldiers merited a public Court Martial…) for stealing his barracks mates ATM cards (and making withdrawals – lovely pictures at the ATM for evidence).
I prefer the sailing navy’s way of dealing with thieves that stole from their mates. They would be flogged, and the cat-o-nine tails used had three knots tied in each strand, spaced an inch or so apart. Two dozen of the bosun’s best left them considering other ways to misbehave.
There are people who are cool with the stealing other people’s lunches out of the refrigerator. I’ve never understood that.
Distrust is poison to any organization. Particularly if you don’t know which of the people among you can’t be trusted.
I could leave ten grand lying on the desk in my office with the absolute certainty that no one would steal it.
Me too. But then, I’m self-employed.
We have one of those at work. Everyone hates it.
Just learned last year that the phrase “letting the cat out of the bag” refers to this tradition in the Royal Navy….
So. When I was on active duty we had one of those. Working night shift the only thing you had to eat was what you brought with you. No place to buy anything. The POS would go into the break room and raid the fridge and eat your food, thought it was funny.
One night I decided to get a little revenge. I bought a pint of Chocolate Chocolate Chip Haagan Daz ice cream. I ate a little bit and then shoved pieces ( okay the whole box) of Ex Lax (chocolate laxative) into the ice cream, labeled it with my name and put it back.
Came back later and noticed that someone had eaten almost the whole thing. Not all of it, the POS would leave just a little to let you know it was eaten, not thrown away.
Pretty soon I noticed one of the Airman was having what seemed like some , shall we say, gastric distress. He would suddenly sprint for the head with a look of terror on his face.
“Hey, eat something that disagreed with you ?”
I had a huge smile on my face.
No, that’s a silly myth. Why would they keep it in a bag?
”Cat out of the bag” refers to a living cat shoved in a bag and is really ticked off when you let it out, and is liable to run all over and refuse to get caught ever again, similar to Pandora’s box.