Posted 8 years ago
Dgut
(1 item)
Taken off a KIA soldier
1967 north of Saigon
Near base long ben
Gifted from a retired us army sgt
Can anyone id the origin? Unit?
Thanks
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Tiger's doing a back flip :)
South Vietnamese Special Forces insignia on a guideon
http://quanonline.com/military/military_reference/american/vietnam_special/sf_patch1.html
Chris
One question
One comment
Tiger isnt back flipping, photo is upside down
Question: south vietnam special forces has three lightning bolts, not shooting stars lime these are?
Back flipping was a joke.
There are also variations within the leaping tiger and the parachute. I would expect such non-uniformity in that place and time. The composition of the parachute, leaping tiger and three bolts/shooting stars are what leads me to my conclusion. There is also the possibility that the shooting stars replacing the thunderbolts had some significance within the unit.
The reason I doubt this is NVA is that it too closely resembles the ARVN special forces patch. ARVN SF was trained by US SF, and even include the three lightening bolts of the US Army SF into their patch. On the NVA side, there was an airborne brigade (indicated by the parachute), but it was trained and equipped by the Communist Chinese, so it's history and symbols should be quite different.
I agree my identification is less than a perfect match. It you want to keep looking I encourage you to start with that NVA Airborne Brigade as your best bet.
Chris