Insignia Search

[Sleepy]

Okay, so, my skills have completely failed me. I spent the better part of 7 hours last night, trawling through every vintage Distinctive Unit Insignia I could find. Maybe its the fact that I stopped looking at around 0300, but I'm just not finding what I'm looking for.

And what I'm looking for is a particular DUI. It appears to be a silver eagle, on a silver base, surrounded by a silver wreath with a break over the top of the eagles head. Unfortunately, I only have hard copies of the photographs I'm using as reference material. I'll try to get some scans this week.

Here's what we know. Photo is dated to the late 60s (M16A1 w/ 30rnd mag, 3rd pattern fatigues), and is part of a series of photographs of my Grandfather at a as-yet-unidentified base, at the rank of SFC. He is working with a number of weapons, and is wearing a black beret (we have a color photo) with that particular DUI on the beret, and a shield-pattern SSI on his left sleeve, with another unidentified shield-pattern patch on his right breast pocket.

Any thoughts on what the unit might be? I looked through the better part of a thousand DUIs last night, and I've got nothing.

[Sleepy]

Okay, so, we have pictures now. Bear in mind, these are very large pictures, but the important bits are small, faded, and blurry.

The three key things I'm trying to get from these pictures are the following:

One, what is the breast badge on his right shirt pocket.
Two, what is the unit insignia on his left shoulder.
Three, although probably redundant, what is the flash on the beret. Its probably just the DUI for the unit, but gods know.

First photograph is a color shot from a series of photos, with a great shot of the beret flash. Notice a certain look of satisfaction and affection on his face for the M79.


Next we have a rather critical look at a particular shell, with a decent shot of the breast badge, whatever it may be.


Next is another full-color shot of Grandpa kneeling. Its not the best, but it may help someone who knows what to look for on the breast badge.



Last is a MASSIVE full-color shot of Grandpa with his jeep. This is a great photo for the beret flash, and the shoulder insignia.


So, does anyone have any guesses? My own skills are coming up pretty short in this section, although some interesting discoveries have been made in light of recent photographs.

Chief among them is the knowledge that Grandpa got a CIB in Vietnam while part of 1st Logistical Command, then got assigned to 1st Armored Division (Old Ironsides) which was in Germany at the time, and then transferred back and finished his career in Vietnam in a different unit, retiring at E-8 after 3 tours. He was already a decorated combat veteran at Specialist after 6-8 years, when he was in 1st Armored.

In short, Grandpa is a badass.

[LiquidSnak]

The shoulder patch in the last photo is Military Assistance Command (Vietnam). The breast patch in the second photo it's in to me looks a hell of a lot like the Jungle Expert patch, but the first photo with a breast patch it's the wrong shape. I can't tell what is on it though from that photo, and could likely be a different patch if three tours were completed.

[Sleepy]

Good catch Snak, close comparison holds true on the MACV call, which lends to further extrapolation that Grandpa might have been an even bigger badass than we originally figured, and we knew he was an All American Badass before that revelation.

Is the beret flash just the DUI for MACV, then? Did they even have one?

[congofal]

Sorry about the necro , but the Beret flash on the first photo is the early insignia of the South Vietnamese Air Force , pre USAF influence , after the USAF started training the SVNAF their insignia was based on that of the USAF

[Sleepy]

Maybe. It looks like theres a bar just under that, but the overall shape seems pretty close. Maybe its something specific based off the ARVN air force?

EDIT: Okay, so, I found something interesting. It looks like this, but in metal. Hmm.

http://news.webshots.com/photo/10051281 ... atJxjHEMmH

EDIT TWICE: It also kind of looks like it might be an ARVN Officers Beret w/ Flash, or the more like embroidered Enlisted Beret Flash (thats a $125 patch right there, apparently), and I think it more likely to be the embroidered model.