Being a local boy, Pat Tillman still crops up in the news a lot here, especially in the last week or so when the Army finally came more or less clean about the circumstances of his death and the subsequent announcements. Virtually every story includes this portrait of him, presumably taken when he was leaving basic training.
It’s a nice enough looking picture with a manly man’s steely gaze and a set jaw. Except for the hat. Honestly, it looks like a tan sock climbed up on top of his head, then expired, sort of flopping over to one side.
Now, I was in the Navy so I didn’t have much contact with Army-type people, and it was a long time ago before anybody – outside Special Forces and Airborne – thought of berets, so I look at this photo and wonder.
Do all Army berets look like that (with various colors)? Is that look a rakish Ranger thing? Or did Cpl. Tillman think it looked cool?
In that picture of then-SPC Tillman (pothumously promoted to CPL), he’s wearing the tan beret, which isthe mark of a Ranger unit, more or less properly, if a bit canted. Technically, the beret is supposed to be worn with the brim parallel to the ground. However, most Soldiers, myself include, wear it cocked a bit down and to the right like that. Some get a size large so they’ll have extra wool material to pull down over the right eyebrow.
The entire Army went to the black beret back in May or June of 2000 to mark the Army’s transformation into a flexible rapid-deployment force capable of putting boots on the ground quickly and adapting to meet any mission or challenge.
Now that I’ve answered the GQ, here’s a little bit of IMHO: I always thought it was more or less to show that “hey, we’re just as cool as those Airborne, SF and Ranger guys and they get to wear berets, so we should wear berets too”.
I wore a maroon beret for 10 years of my career and I’ve worn the black one for the last 3. Therefore, I believe that I can state with that conviction born only from intimate knowledge that the beret is the stupidest thing I have to deal with in the course of my day-to-day military service.
Just how does it suck? Let me count the ways:
No brim, so it doesn’t protect your eyes from the sun or rain.
It’s made of wool and leaves the ears exposed, which means it’s hot in the summer but your ears freeze in the winter.
It takes two hands to put on, so if you have stuff in your hands when going outdoors, you have to stop, put your things down, fiddle with your headgear to get it just right, then pick up your things and move on.
It’s a pain to get properly fitted and shaped. Those who don’t take the time or don’t care end up looking either really stupid or really sloppy
Even if it’s shaped properly, sometimes it just doesn’t want to lay right and somebody ends up telling you that it looks wrong
Back when I first started to wear the maroon beret (Airborne), I thought it was cool, because it was a mark of distinction and pride. However, the excitement quickly faded and I would wear the softcap whenever I could get away with it, which granted, wasn’t often. Once the entire US Army went to the beret, it lost any semblence of being special and now it’s just a pain in the ass.
SPC and CPL are the same paygrade, but not the same rank. SPC is considered “lower enlisted”. A corporal is a Noncommissioned officer. It is considered a promotion even though there is no increase in pay and officially it is a lateral transfer. When someone is made a corporal I have always seen them do it in front of a formation just like they would for a promotion to SGT.
Here is a good article about the origin of the beret in the US Army. Short answer, blame the British. The Rangers like to think they were wearing the black beret for ever but it was only since 1975 and tankers wore them first. An excerpt:
I’m not speaking for DesertDog of course, but for me, the silliness is not in wearing a beret, but instead in the way that the one on Pat Tillman’s head flops over his right eye. It’s a formal photo, so presumably he intended it to look like that. But it doesn’t look very badass to me.
One thing I’ve noticed is that the tan berets seem to be made from a different supplier…the ones I’ve seen (I was regular Army…so I wore black) were much, much thinner than the now standard black beret worn by most soldiers. My berets are moderately thick (though I have two untouched new ones and one pretty well worn one…once it’s shaped and broken in, you don’t want to wear a new one.)
I’m in the National Guard now (I did 5 years active duty), and we wear the softcap with the BDU / ACU so it’s nice for outside work. I’m one of the few that very much likes the beret for garrison. I think it looks a lot sharper, and for office work or other such things it’s fine. In the field or working outside, I definitely prefer the softcap.
That’s right. It’s not a promotion. It’s a lateral transfer. When I was in the Army, I made it to SP5 and then, during my Reserve enlistment, I got a lateral transfer, along with all the other SP5 and SP6 Soldiers to NCO.
OP: Technically that beret is being worn improperly. It should be straighter and the excess pulled to the side should not cover the eye. Also, the excess should be at least touching the ear and no longer than midway down the ear.
But to everyone’s credit, it’s a next to impossible pain in the ass to wear properly. And it takes months before it actually fits right and actually lays properly on the head. If you ever lose it, it’s not like replacing an 8 dollar patrol cap that fits the same from day 1 to day 1000.
You can’t just run to the store and pick up a beret to wear that day if you lost yours. You have to shave it, which is a huge pain in the ass. You have to fit it to your head, tie the strings in the back and then cut them. Tie that in a square knot and but the ends. Depending on your head shape, you may want to cut the cardboard inside the beret at either one or both sides of the flash.
Now you’re finally ready to put it on your head, but it still wont sit right. It wont naturally want to lay on your head the way it’s supposed to. You have to soak it in water, and wear it while it dries. Then soak it again, where it wet, soak it, wear it, soak it, wear it, soak it, wear it. Wear it, wear it, wear it. Dont put it in your pocket yet. If you put it in your pocket, you’ll ruin all the progress you’ve made in the past month. Maybe after 6 months or so, it will finally fit the way it should. Now dont lose it. And make sure you carefully fold it before putting it in your pocket.
That’s precisely what I meant, D F. After seeing all the steps Bear_Nenno lists to get one to look right, maybe he (Tillman) was doing the best he could with one he’d been issued the week before.
When I was in boot camp we were issued the traditional ‘Crackerjack’ uniform with the dixiecup cap and it took a few weeks to get them right, but nothing like the involved process B_N goes through, mainly breaking the sides over and keeping the damn thing white. The brim was supposed to be two fingers above the eyebrows, parallel to the ground but a little cant was tolerated. What was not tolerated was pushing it back on your head so your hair in front showed like in every navy musical you’ve seen.
Partway through my enlistment, Adm. Zumwalt ordered suit-style uniforms with a brimmed hat, similar to chiefs’ and officers’ (different insignia on the front for all three) and I had to buy a new set. Now it looks like they’ve gone back to the old style again. I wonder if the blue jumper is wool melton like it used to be.
For what it’s worth, in the Air Force, only Special Operations (Para Rescue, Combat Controllers, etc.) and Security Forces wear berets. In both the Army and Air Force, the berets are color-coded to denote what you do that’s so damn special.
glancing at Wikipedia for reference
IIRC, all the jumping-out-of-airplanes guys in the AF get varying shades of red for their berets, Para-Rescue wears Maroon, Combat Controllers wear Scarlet, Combat Weathermen wear Grey, Security Forces wear Blue, Survival-Evasion-Resistance-Escape specialists wear green, Tactical Air Control Parties wear black, and Seniors and Cadre at the Air Force academy wear Light Blue.
Army paratroopers wear Maroon, Rangers wear Tan, Green Berets… I can’t remember what color hat they wear, and everyone else wears black berets in the Army.
And Wikipedia says that women in grades E-1 through E-9 in the Navy have the option of wearing black berets, but I’ve never run into a navy girl wearing one (mind you, I don’t run into a whole lot of Sailors, male or female, in southern Arizona).
In combat a beret (not that anybody uses one) or a doo-rag is actually good cover. If you’ve got no twigs or weeds, soft cover makes the best part of your head look like a rolled sock or a fold of a blouse instead of a juicy shootable melon.
You can mash soft cover up and put it into your thigh cargo pocket with no detriment.
