Electric Strawberry,...

[Packo]

Sorry John, but we always heard "chicken". Doesn't the AA on the 82nd patch stand for Almost Airborne?

Inquiring Mind

[splummer]

The first log was the largest single command in Vietnam. The atav web site lists the log's battle casualties as 591 KIA and 1498 WIA. It doesn't seem acurate to me because most transportation units were under the log and I think they probably had more KIA and WIA than that. We had a lot of 11b's with us in our truck unit. I suppose the Army made them drivers and just changed there MOS. Your right I wore the USARV patch. I always wished I had been in one of the divisions with a real patch instead of the leaning shit house.

[frisco-kid]

101st Abn: Screaming Chicken; Pukin' Buzzard; One-Oh-Worst. Had a Kit Carson Scout tell me that there is no V'namese word for "Eagle," so they called us "The Chicken Men."

1st Cav: Like Tom said, but the patch was often referred to as a "Horse Blanket" also.

82nd Abn: Almost Airborne; Alcoholic Airborne. Once heard a redneck bigot of a Staff Sergeant call it the African Airborne. He thought there were too many blacks in it. I don't think he'd been to Nam yet, or he would have known that we all bled red.

1st Log: About 3mos. after returning to Nam with the 82nd, I was pulled out of the field and sent to a new security platoon that was being formed for convoy escorts from Cam Ranh Bay to the Central Highlands. We were part of 1st Logistical Command. I wore an 82nd patch on my left shoulder, and a 101st combat patch on my right. Every once in awhile an officer or a higher-than-me NCO would bitch about no Leaning Shithouse patch on my shirts. So I put one on a couple of them to appease them. But I took the blue and white "Airborne" crest of the 82nd patch and put it over the 1st Log patch. No one said anything about it.

[exlrrp]

When I was in the 3d/508th in Panama in the mid 60s we had out own patch. it loooked like the 82 patch: white circle in a red square but where the 82d said AA, we had a little blue dragon. Wasn't much of a dragon like on the 18th Abn Corps, sort of a friendly little dragon like you'd pick up and pet.
We called it the pregnant seahorse. I been looking for a picture of it but can't find it
Stay good all
James

[MORTARDUDE]

James :

You know I love a search challenge ....

check this out ( top -- right hand side )

http://www.red-devils.org/_newslette...vilsDigest.pdf

All the best,

Larry

[covan]

Larry,

Good find. I found the unit crest but that's the only patch insignia I've seen.

[Packo]

Larry,

I think James will appreciate your labor. Really good interesting site.

James....you need to join the Association. Don't go to a reunion though, you look much younger than those old guys in the Pics.
They all look like Frisco and Bob.

Pack

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by MORTARDUDE James :

You know I love a search challenge ....

check this out ( top -- right hand side )

http://www.red-devils.org/_newslette...vilsDigest.pdf

All the best,

Larry

Thanks Larry

I didn't see the patch though. it was a very unusual patch. I almost got into a fight in ft Lewis when i was processing there to go the Vietnam. Going through one of the lines, one of the supply clerks wanted to cut it off my sleeve--they were collecting patches. I told him he'd have to pay for it. he said it was Army [property. I told him I had bought the patch AND the shirt. There was a couple of them and it looked like it might get desperate. I was prepared to do battle--no stinking straightleg supply clerk cuts an airborne patch off MY arm without a fight, you betcha.
The supply sgt came over and started hassling me--I demanded to see the IG and the MPs. I told him they could buy it off me for $500.00!! but thats the only way they'd get it other than to take it off my dead body. When I walked away there was hard feelings but I walked away with the patch still on my arm. I say it once again--no hippie ever insulted me the way the US Army did.
By the way, when I got to Vietnam, I had to store this along with all my other personal effects for "safe keeping." When I checked out of the unit 6 months later to go recondo school they told me that all my stuff had been looted and stolen (along with everybody else's.) As far as I know nothing was ever done about this. the 101st let REMFs steal grunts stuff and get away with it. It was rampant--and nothing was ever done about it. My Class A greens were also stolen when I got to Ft Bragg after nam because the Army wouldn't keep the barracks secure.

I know I have a picture of me somewhere wearing my class A's with this patch I'll look for it.

Stay good
James

[revwardoc]

Geez! It DOES look like a pregnant seahorse!

I was in C-Flight of the 63rd OMS. Our "unofficial" logo was Snoopy wearing his WWI flying helmet and scarf, sitting on his dog house, flipping the bird to the moon, and saying "F**K It!" It was very popular with us enlisted stiffs but the officers made us remove it from whatever it was on. Brass was no fun at all.

[MORTARDUDE]

James :

Look under the word Deploy" and to the right of the word "Digest"

It looks just like you described... a pregnant sea horse where the
AA should be ... ???????

Larry