Can you wear your Marine unit patch as an Army combat patch if you deployed with the Marines? Policy appears to say no.

My best friend spent something like three and a half years in Nam with the 3rd Marine Division. After returning and a break in service he decided to re-up with the Army. The question of his Marine combat patch came up. Now this was in the mid-70s right after Nam ended. Our chain of command looked it up; the conclusion they came to was if the Marines and authorized the wear of patches - either for his time in combat or even at the time, it would be okay. However, as the Marines didn't then (and to my knowledge still don't - and the reason given to me by more than one Marine has been "just being a Marine is enough honor" without a unit patch) to allow him to wear the Marine patch would be to allow him to wear an unauthorized decoration or uniform item. At the time there was no malice or inter-service jealousy, just an honest attempt to adhere to the regulations of both services.

An interesting side story. My buddy had to take a bust because of his break in service. He left the Marines as a Gunnery Sergeant and lost two stripes to Sergeant/E-5. He'd been Force Recon in Nam and has racked up a slew of awards, many for valor. He got into a Pee-ing contest with our new First Sergeant on morning over a trash can that hadn't been emptied when Top came in; my buddy had been CQ the night before and Top had a nasty habit of screwing with CQs before relieving them of duty. My buddy had sent his runner on to chow and figure to get the can emptied when the runner got back.

In the course of the butt-chewing (which I though was kind of petty, but I might be biased); Top told my buddy he wasn't "crap for an NCO." There was a war after that. Later on that morning my buddy, after sleeping a few hours, got dressed up in his Class A's with his numerous awards and made a point of stopping by the Orderly Room. Top immediately questioned all his Marine and Naval Awards. My buddy produced orders for each one and patiently explained how he got this one or that one in Nam.

After that, he made a point of wearing his class As every chance he got so Top could see what a "Crappy NCO" looked like in Class As.

I thought some folks would find the story amusing.

Dept. of the Army personnel working in the "Not" square building in Arlington Va. with nothing better to do than write confusing uniform regulations need tighter supervision while they're on the clock; maybe remove their access to writing implements, with instructions that all proposed uniform regulations must be written with crayons first for review.

Quite a few of former marines in the 11th SF Group wore the respective WW II USMC division patches as their get back patch. As imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I wore the Far East Air Force whilst in the 11th. No flack ever given. It more rightly should have been the 7th AF Patch.....but I liked the FEAF PATCH. See top left photo.

Maybe the Army Guard is different but when I was in (retired in 93), initially Nam vets wore the MAC-V patch if service with USMC or other service. Later on the Regs must have been relaxed, because I saw 1st, 3rd, and 5th MARDIV patches, as well as one Seebee patch!

1SG John Millan - So -- if you were in combat WITH the Army, but not IN the Army, it would be a different call than being in combat WITH the Army and IN the Army? Just trying to be sure, some of these "fiddly details" can be very important!

I had a former Marine who was now in the Army with me in Afghanistan (173rd ABCT) - he had served in combat with Marine recon during first gulf war - scud hunting. He wore a Marine patch on his right shoulder - plus the Ranger tab on his left (a school he attended while serving as a recon Marine) over his current Army unit patch. I did see his DD 214. He received a Purple Heart and Bronze Star while serving with me - we were in the same HUMV. At that point in the deployment - I saw no need to correct anything. He was a stud.

I did Medic training with a guy who wore a "1 Guadal Canal Patch" on right memory serves correctly.

LCpl Christopher Pickett
Like Artillery General Ott & the wearing of Red Berets.

I mean the army has determined that transgender soldiers will not be eligible to join and not for some bigoted reason it’s as simple as the medication they need for hormon treatment isn’t available in certain deplorable environments so they put the transitioning soldier in a non deploy status. It’s the military you should be required to be deplorable at all times unless you are in a period of recovery for an injury personal life choices doesn’t constitute the army adjusting because you Wana play guess my genetics

Deployable* SGT (Join to see)

SPC (Join to see) mental illness is a disqualifier for service. Not to mention thier 40% suicide rate. They deserve our pitty, not our uniform.

SGT (Join to see) - I dunno--in this case, I find deplorable rather fitting. Just saying. . . .