The Marine Corps is not going to the beret - but we considered it back in
the late 1970's. That wear test proved that the beret was unpopular within
the ranks, did not add anything to the aura of being a Marine since we never
wore it in our past. We decided not to adopt it for any purpose.
The Army, on the other hand, has officially worn the beret for several
decades, at least unofficially some wore it in WW II in an unauthorized
status. The Army's colors for wearing the beret have been, as I know it,
green for Special Forces (hence the name "Green Berets") which I think was
adopted around 1960 or so; black has been reserved for Rangers for some time
and maroon for airborne forces. Within the Air Force, maroon was used by
para medics, I think - combination of maroon being the Army branch color for
medical corps and airborne.
If the Army were to adopt berets with respect to branches, they would have
used their traditional branch colors: light blue would be for infantry, red
for artillery, red with white trim for engineers, bright green w/yellow trim
for MPs, ultramarine blue with gold trim for aviation (old Army Air Corps
colors), gold for cav/armor, etc.
The beret is a good piece of gear, but a specialty item, and should be left
to elite, special units like the SF ("Green Berets"), Rangers and Airborne
forces. To equip the entire Army, in my opinion, is like equiping the
entire AF with WW II A-1 leather flight jackets. It does nothing for
readiness, and lessens the respect for those who have to go thru something
your average supply clerk, cook or motor pool jockey does not have to
undergo to get one of the currently authorized berets. In an attempt to
make everybody happy, and look like some knife-toting snake eater, the
signifcance of the beret will be reduced to nothing in June, 2001.
The Army does have time to rethink this, however, as they consider an
overall uniform change. One thing being discussed is the return to "pinks
and greens" which is the WW II officers uniform (Patton, Ike, Marshall,
"Twelve O'Clock High" etc) discontinued in 1958 - should the Army return to
this uniform for all hands - the black beret would simply not go. There is
nothing black on that uniform, to incl the shoes, as there is on the current
Army uniform.
I pray that the Army chief of staff is advised to reconsider this move.
Talk in the ranks about this subject, even from non-Rangers/SOF/Abn, is
spiteful. I would say 90% against.
STew Rayfield
-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Winnington-Ball [mailto:gwball@sympatico.ca]
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 10:41 PM
To: mil-veh@mil-veh.org
Subject: Re: [MV] A cap,
Jim Rice wrote:
> Come June
> 14th, the entire US Army will quit wearing the BDU (camo) cap and will
begin
> wearing a Black Beret, much to mosts dismay....
>
Jim, there is a certain ... savoir faire ... about berets, but with respect
to
your senior leadership, they SHOULD have gone with the traditional colour
codes.
Black is armour, khaki is infantry, green is commando, dark red is airborne.
What were they thinking?
:-)
Are the Marines going to the beret as well, or are they staying traditional?
Methinks that this change will inevitably result in some monumental bar
frolic
in the near future...
-- Regards,Geoff Winnington-Ball MAPLE LEAF UP! ==> Zephyr, Ontario, Canada ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Maple Leaf Up - The Canadian Army Overseas in WW2 http://www.mapleleafup.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1st Canadian Armoured Carrier Regiment http://www.1cacr.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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