The soldier is wearing an old fashioned full-dress military policeman’s uniform, which looks exceptionally dapper. But what is up with the area around his neck? It seems like it has been retouched, as well as the scarf/ascot he is wearing (is this part of the regulation uniform?)
The whole portrait looks airbrushed. But the neck looks altered in some other way.
Also: the ribbons he is wearing do not look right. They seem as if they were painted on. The patch on his left shoulder also looks like it is painted on.
Hope you’re not stalking one of those fake veterans on the net again.
P.S: love that gay flag on his left shoulder. It means “I’m military but I cry too”.
Looks like a normal, not very professional, portrait shot from the 1960s. Colors reflect the film and paper used and the storage conditions of the paper. It cold have been a print made from a 35mm slide shot with high speed (in those days ASA 160) Ektachrome. You wouldn’t expect a lot of sharpness and the colors would likely be a bit bluish-greenish unless the print was made in a custom lab. The softness could be deliberate–people without perfect skin tend to look a little better slightly out of focus. I don’t think it is professional because a professional would have made a more flattering shot (without the double chin) and would have used better lighting. I suspect this is one of those shots where a photographer set up in the armory and everybody filed by to get their picture taken.
The scarf is not part of any normal US military uniform but is often worn but special units on special occasions–he could have been a member of a drill team. (Also I guess the MPs like them because he was wearing one for his graduation from MP school years earlier.) The reason the ribbons look strange to you is that you’ve never seen a rack of thin ribbons. People fussy about their appearance (e.g., drill team members) can buy a custom made rack with their particular ribbons already mounted. The ribbons are thin, as opposed to the standard issue ribbons.
At this site http://www.northfifthmemories.com/gallery2.html you can see what SSGT Gus Rubel looked like like when he graduated from MP school, before he went to Vietnam. I would not be surprised if he became an instructor at his old MP school and had this picture taken then.
I agree with this. Also, though, the line where the ascot meets the neck, especially on his left where there is shadow, looks altered. It may be that line was not clear enough in the B&W version and had to be “painted” in during the coloring process.
Also notice the color of the ascot at the point where the lapels come together. It’s a very small spot but clearly the ascot has been colored the same color as the jacket there.
Also note the metal ring on the gun belt (or whatever kind of belt that is). Look at the B on his nametag and go straight down to it. The part overlapping the belt is copper-colored and the part outside of the belt is silver. This seems to indicate a coloring job.
Exceptional attention has been paid to his face, however.
The Army doesn’t still use these uniforms, do they? Do they wear the Sam Browne belt anymore? Do you have to be an MP to wear it? I think it looks very good.
Second, in the film The Last Detail, Marine MPs at Portsmouth can be seen wearing the dark green Marine “Service Alpha” uniform, with white belts, white Sam Browne belts and white hats. It looks extremely sharp. Are these items still worn by Marine MPs today?
My uncle was a 'Nam era MP at Fort Dix and there was that exact same “scarf*” in the box of his other gear (baton, cuffs, breathalyzer kit, pretty much everything but his sidearm!)
*It’s not a scarf, it’s a thin adjustable strap of fabric that goes around the neck with a snap closure at the back. Stitched to that is a rectangle of fabric that hangs down in the front. Basically a dickey that will pull off if grabbed in a struggle.
In the 60s-80s those neck scarves were a common style in Army & USAF special units. crowmanyclouds described them perfectly.
The ribbons are utterly typical. They’re not soft embroidery, but rather a set of fabric-covered metal tags which slide onto set of metal rails. The whole unit is then attached to the jacket with typically 4 pin-and-clutch fasteners. You try to curve the assembly a bit to match the shape of your chest. But it always hangs a bit unsmoothly. His bent-over-and-twisted posture ensures a lot of the uniform elements won’t look rightly aligned nor will they hang neatly.
Yes, the photo has been retouched. Probably the typical airbrush cleanup for a PR photo taken in the 1960s. But the retouch probably was nothing more than lightening shadows & smoothing skin. All the major elements you see were there in real life.
And yes, it’s likely the photo was colorized at some point too. The lighting contrast seems unrealistically soft IMO.
Sam Browne belts looked spiffy, but the made a great grab handle in a fight. Navy shore patrol had the same problem with neckerchiefs, so they’d cut them behind the neck and scotch tape back together.
The scarf is a fake ascot, a length of rayon fabric fastened to a snap-on neck band. This guy’s is green because it is the MP branch designating color (the background on a MP officers shoulder boards are green, too). The Sam Brown belt was just part of the MPs Class A duty uniform --back in the day when there was a Class A uniform.
The CG at one of my posts declared that all staff personnel would wear an appropriately colored ascot in fatigue uniform while in garrison. Mine was dark blue, almost black, and it was hot and scratchy in an oppressive South Missouri summer. Just one more little piece of none-sense with the ultimate effect of making a soldiers life less pleasant that it could have been.
The same bozo declared that sleeves could be rolled up but if so the fatigue blouse was to be worn outside the trousers and with a web pistol belt. It was just easier to keep the sleeves down and buttoned and sweat like a horse.
It is a colorized photo. There is a picture almost exactly like this of my dad in his USMC uniform from the 1940s. IT was a black and white photo and then the studio colored it in. In the photo of my dad, it looks like he is wearing lipstick because they made his lips so red.
No, I like the original. It was colorized in the 40s when the picture was taken, that is how portrait studios often worked. It is a B&W picture of my dad that was hand painted after development.
