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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
In the Royal Navy after a cat-o-nine-tails to be used for a flogging was made it was kept in a red baize bag until it was time to use it. Just before the flogging they would remove the cat from the bag. After the flogging both bag and lash were tossed overboard. Both were one-use items. A separate cat and a separate bag were made for each flogging. It was part of the ritual of punishment.
The bosun kept the “cat” in a bag when not being used.
From “To Rule the Waves How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World”
by John Curless
The ritual of flogging (with bosun making a cat-o-nine-tails and a bag to hold it in) was in place by 1650. It largely ended by 1850 (really 1825). During that period several million men served in or with the Royal Navy. During the Wars of American Independence there were over 100,000 men in the Royal Navy annually. During the period from 1793-1815 (Wars of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars), manpower hit over 150,000 with marines, sailors, and officers counted. And they were not the same 150,000 men, as the median length of service was 5 years.
Given Britain’s population was around 6 million in 1776 and 10.5 million in 1800, we can assume that the majority of the population had served or knew someone who had served aboard a Royal Navy warship. It is not impossible for the term “letting the cat out of the bag” to have originated as a result of releasing a live cat (or cats) out of a bag. It is also not unlikely (and certainly not “silly”) that the phrase arose due to the practice of removing a cat-o-nine-tails from the red baize bag it was stored in prior to a flogging.
I’m sticking with “silly.”
“The cat o’ nine tails story is dubious at best. It is reported that the lashes were sometimes stored in bags, but the suggested nautical punishment origin fails at the critical point, in that it doesn’t match the ‘disclose a secret‘ meaning of the phrase.”
Reviewing that reference I see that it was written by someone apparently ignorant of maritime history and British demographics, who admits he “can find no direct documentary evidence to link ‘letting the cat out of the bag’ to the selling of livestock,” but thinks despite the lack of evidence that his personal preference for that explanation justifies depreciating the cat-o-nine-tails one.
Yes, that is silly.
No, it is the outcome of being sold “a pig in a poke.”
Person goes to market to buy a piglet. Doesn’t look in the bag (which is pretty active). Buys a “pig in a poke”.
Goes to show his buddies. They chide him for being so stoopid as to buy something unseen.
To show his buddies he didn’t get taken, he lets “the cat out the bag” much to the enjoyment of his friends.
That is the version that I heard.