Insignia for New Seniors in Alternate Uniforms

[carnold1836]

CAPM 39-1 page 20

NOTES:
1.   Grade Insignia: Senior member officers wear embroidered grade insignia on gray epaulet sleeve. Senior member NCOs and Airmen wear the 3-inch or 3 1/2-inch cloth chevrons on the sleeve or embroidered gray epaulet sleeve. Senior members without grade and NCOs and Airmen wearing chevrons on the sleeve wear the CAP lapel/collar insignia on both sides of the collar.

Emphasis added by me.

[shorning]

CAPM 39-1 page 20

NOTES:
1.   Grade Insignia: Senior member officers wear embroidered grade insignia on gray epaulet sleeve. Senior member NCOs and Airmen wear the 3-inch or 3 1/2-inch cloth chevrons on the sleeve or embroidered gray epaulet sleeve. Senior members without grade and NCOs and Airmen wearing chevrons on the sleeve wear the CAP lapel/collar insignia on both sides of the collar.

Emphasis added by me.

Except that doesn't apply to the aviator shirt combo.  You want Figure 4-2, Note 2:

2. Grade Insignia: Gray CAP epaulet sleeves displaying grade insignia.

[Pylon]

CAPM 39-1 page 20

NOTES:
1.   Grade Insignia: Senior member officers wear embroidered grade insignia on gray epaulet sleeve. Senior member NCOs and Airmen wear the 3-inch or 3 1/2-inch cloth chevrons on the sleeve or embroidered gray epaulet sleeve. Senior members without grade and NCOs and Airmen wearing chevrons on the sleeve wear the CAP lapel/collar insignia on both sides of the collar.

Emphasis added by me.

Same thing Col Horning said... you took the quote out of context.  We all know Senior Members without grade wear CAP cutouts on the blues.  That's specified on the page you quoted, which deals only with the USAF-style uniform.

When you look at the corresponding page for the corporate short-sleeve shirt, you see the quote that Col Horning posted which says grade insignia will be worn on grey epaulet sleeves.  Senior members without grade, accordingly, have no grade insignia.

Verbatim, there is no prescribed insignia to be worn in the aviator combo for Senior Members without grade.  Is it a grey area?  You bet.  Would clarification from NHQ be nice?  Certainly.  In the meantime, we go by what the regs spell out for us.

[carnold1836]

OOPS my mistake. at times CAPR 39-1 leaves quite a bit to be desired. It's almost as if the corporate uniforms were an after thought.

[DNall]

CAPM 39-1 page 20

NOTES:
1.   Grade Insignia: Senior member officers wear embroidered grade insignia on gray epaulet sleeve. Senior member NCOs and Airmen wear the 3-inch or 3 1/2-inch cloth chevrons on the sleeve or embroidered gray epaulet sleeve. Senior members without grade and NCOs and Airmen wearing chevrons on the sleeve wear the CAP lapel/collar insignia on both sides of the collar.

Emphasis added by me.

Same thing Col Horning said... you took the quote out of context.  We all know Senior Members without grade wear CAP cutouts on the blues.  That's specified on the page you quoted, which deals only with the USAF-style uniform.

When you look at the corresponding page for the corporate short-sleeve shirt, you see the quote that Col Horning posted which says grade insignia will be worn on grey epaulet sleeves.  Senior members without grade, accordingly, have no grade insignia.

Verbatim, there is no prescribed insignia to be worn in the aviator combo for Senior Members without grade.  Is it a grey area?  You bet.  Would clarification from NHQ be nice?  Certainly.  In the meantime, we go by what the regs spell out for us.

That's right. Obviously a lot of thought was not put into it. Plus I'm not real happy about poking permenant holes in 2 blues shirts this wknd while waiting for my paperwork to process for my prior grade. Now, while clarifying this, I would sure like to see a blank gray CAP slide to cover both, and back to sewn on CAP cutouts for BDU/BBDU, no insignia for flight suit. There's a real legal issue w/ having a SM (who may be 18yo) wearing the same insignia as a C/AB (who may be 17yo).

And while we're at it, it would be nice to change the enlisted cadet grade rule to be the same for both blues & BDUs, & in that process to have enlisted cadets go back to cutout on one side & grade on the other, for the obvious logistics/cost issues that have been stated repeatedly.

All that's really easy fixes with already avail items that clean up these issue nicely.

[Psicorp]

That's right. Obviously a lot of thought was not put into it. Plus I'm not real happy about poking permenant holes in 2 blues shirts this wknd while waiting for my paperwork to process for my prior grade. Now, while clarifying this, I would sure like to see a blank gray CAP slide to cover both, and back to sewn on CAP cutouts for BDU/BBDU, no insignia for flight suit. There's a real legal issue w/ having a SM (who may be 18yo) wearing the same insignia as a C/AB (who may be 17yo).

Sewn on CAP cutouts for "Officer Candidates" are allowed on the BDU/BBDU.  That's the only thing that distinguishes a SM from a C/AB and there is no grade insignia authorized (because there isn't actual grade insignia) for SM without Grade and Cadets on the flight suit.   Blank slides are a great idea, definately gives uniform the "Officer Candidate" look.

[DNall]

I'd have to check the reg on that, but I could swear it says metal cutouts on BDU/BBDU exactly like cadets. Like I said, just still pissed about having to poke never go away holes in a couple blues shirts for a wknd activity. That's stupid we do that to SMs. We wonder why they have uniform problems as 2Lts when we don't put any more thought into it than that.

Anyway, blank slides, avail from vanguard now.... I mention this repeatedly cause a whole lot of the things we talked about on the portal & here suddenly seem to be in the works, based on: Iowa's updates; recent threads here; and a long conversation I had with a region staff officer this past wknd. Just hoping it sticks.

[davedove]

I could go for the blank slide, or slides with CAP but not a rank insignia.

In fact, I saw a new senior member at the MDWG conference last weekend who was wearing these on the blue service jacket.  It looked kind of strange without the rank insignia.

I don't know where this person got the idea, but I certainly don't think I've seen anything official on this.

[carnold1836]

Sticks like Teflon^TM DNall. But I agree I'm hoping that some of the things that I talked about with the same SWR staff officer sees the light of day soon.

[MIKE]

NOTES: 2. CAP Lapel/Collar Insignia: Senior member NCOs and Airmen as well as senior members without grade wear this device on both sides of the collar. Cadet members without grade wear metal device on both sides of the collar. NOTE: Senior member and cadet officers as well as cadet NCOs and airman wore this device on the
left collar prior to 4 March 2005. Wear of this device is no longer authorized for these individuals. Members
have until 30 September 2005 to comply with this policy change.

[DNall]

slides with CAP but not a rank insignia.

That's what I meant by blank slide, sorry. Gray slide w/ "CAP" & no grade. That or add a fourth stripe for SFO & make the FO slide for SM, or as officer candidate as we're attempting to shift it.

Chris, I did talk to the officer involved about a couple things, but the part I was ref'ing above speaks more to things he told me about being on the drawing board, and I was happy to hear it.

[SJFedor]

Don't you DARE add a 4th stripe to the SFO epaulets!

I've already got almost 50 bucks in FO/TFO/SFO paraphanalia I'm trying to pawn off on someone else. I don't need to buy more!

Besides, FO and TFO look ok, but SFO has people asking me if I'm a commander(USN/USCG), and I know what'll happen if we put a 4th one on there.

[Al Sayre]

Well, that wouldnt be that bad, if an SFO had 4 stripes, since when you turn 21 you'd go from "being mistaken for a CAPT" to being a Capt.

[DNall]

You'd be mistaken for a C/Col since AFROTC insignia goes by the navy model, don't ask me why, and clearly you're not a 20yo O-6 Captain.

Don't complain to me. I had FO & TFO in maroon, then bought SFO in maroon a couple months before I could put on, then happily bought SFO in gray, which I then never put on cause I turned 21 before the slow paperwork made it around, so I had to put on 1Lt, which lasted a couple months or something as I recall before I put on Captain. Now since I rejoined I'm waiting for Major to come back that I earned in 2000. But that has them all confused so they're talking about getting me Captain back while I wait, and I've been waiting two months for that form to process - mind you now, NHQ has dates of rank on all of this & the record flagged for ref by my echelon commanders before I even turned in the application.

Obviously we change too much stuff too fast, and screw our members contantly by making them buy new junk plus not taking care of them at all, hence our retention sucks to criminal proportions. Too many things in our current system don't make sense... What I'd like to see us do is stop the crazy-train, apply common sense across the board (which may change your FO insignia or even the fact that we have FOs), then freeze it all for a while with some new rules about how to make uniform & program changes inthe future.

[LtCol White]

DNALL, did something fall and hit you in the head? What you are asking makes too much sense. You're not thinking clearly to think that NHQ would do this! But it is a nice pipe dream.

[TankerT]

Obviously we change too much stuff too fast, and screw our members contantly by making them buy new junk plus not taking care of them at all, hence our retention sucks to criminal proportions.

OK... so... if your proposed wings/badges go through... isn't that forcing me to buy new junk?

[DNall]

Perfection is out of reach, but they're not all completerly dense up there. They mostly have good intentions, they're just so disconnected they have no idea what's going on in the field & can't see or understand our issues. We may not all see eye to eye on what represents the common sense solution to each thing, but I think we can mostly come togther on things. From that the folks on top will listen most of the time & adopt a goodly portion of it, if you're patient. It doesn't fix the system since more stuff has gone stupid faster than the process to fix things, but I don't control the reset button, that's off in Congress or the AF somewhere in someone's desk that I'm sure doesn't know he has that power.

The group proposed stuff I worked on you mean, cause there's a couple other proposals out there too. Yes though it does. As I said, the system is broke, the best thing would be to stop & fix it, then freeze it that way for a few years (5) while the process is fixed to keep history from repeating itself. I said make changes that make sense & have a real measurable purpose, don't be rash about things.

Anyway, a blank or one stripe slide for officer candidates (formerly known as SMWOG) is more based on a liability issue, that happens to also be logical.