"The Good ole Days"

Being a longtime member of CAP and a history buff, I'm curious to find out from others how the uniforms and other things were in CAP before 1990.  I know we have several "old-timers" in here as well that can help me out.  I'm especially interested in seeing pics of "pickle suits", "smurf suits", "berry boards", and anything else that we can look back on and chuckle a little.

Here are some pics of our squadron in Allentown NJ. We have been in the same meeting place since the mid 60's.

http://allentown.njwg.cap.gov/history.htm

Oh yea, the good old days, lets see 1505 khaki's (brown, short shelve), sew on stripes, sew on hat device, plastic encased "cartoon" ribbons.   

Oh and let's don't forget the pinstripe sear sucker female uniform, and that wrap around skirt. 

Man had just landed on the moon.  It was an exciting time for aerospace, not to good a time for America...

Yep the good old days...

Maybe they where maybe not, but it is what we had in the late 60's to early 70's.  Will see if I can find some pictures.

don't forget the woolen Blues , "Coca-Cola" pataches, the white band on Cadet Officer Service Caps, and starch on everything.

Oh, and how could I forget about the Green Fatigues.  Always tucked and Ironed.  Achievement books and contracts. 

Oh, and how could I forget about the Green Fatigues.  Always tucked and Ironed.  Achievement books and contracts.

That just made me smile.

Sent Rick Franz a set of photos of uniforms of the 1940's, 50's 60's and 90s blues with berry boards. I keep getting the dreaded Red X when I try to send photos.

You should watch these two old videos I found in this post:
http://captalk.net/index.php?topic=11127.0

You can see some CAP uniform evolution from the NER past commanders.
http://www.ner.cap.gov/history.htm

Let's see......shade 1 khakis with tie tucked in between 2nd and 3rd button, 505s, bushjackets, red,white and blue training ribbons, CAPC cutouts, starch lotsa starch.  Books like Aviation and You, Navigation and Weather.  Very little bling.  Wasn't unusual for a cadet officer to only have 5 ribbons maybe 6 if they were really high speed.  Minimum age for cadets was 14. Ridgeway style fatigue hats.

Wow!  Great stuff!  Some of this dates WAY before my time!  I joined as a cadet in 1988.  I remember the Leadership Laboratory, Aerospace '88 and Horizon's Obnoxious Unlimited books too!  Thanks!

Don't forget "Operation Countdown" with its social and etiquette skills, and what passed for Moral Leadership back then.

Actually, it was way better than what we got now, which is usually some guy who shows up every month or so and tells the cadets "Don't do drugs."

So what do you want to know about?

The blues shade when I joined was Shade 84. The kahki shade I remember was shade 505 long-sleved shirts that were worn with a blue tie. I think there were still Ike jackets and some of the seniors had bush jackets to wear with their summer uniforms. I think the most popular uniform was a dark blue shirt, either shade 84 or 1549, that could be worn with military creases and really looked sharp. The same shirt was worn by the SAC elite guard.

Cadet officers wore a white band on their visored hats and we cadets wore a cloth version of the current metal flight cap device. Cadets enlisted wore sew-on rank. The ribbons were a strange mix of old-style things or plastic comicbook things. There was a blue bar patch for the uniforms that said Cadet, Civil Air Patrol.
The CAP command patch was a huge circlular patch similar to the current seal with CAP in the top.

Women had this really sharp light blue summer uniform that they called "chords" and the absolutely strangest fatigue uniform with a wrap-around skirt.

There were patches worn at the end of a sleve to reflect specialities, wartime service, or encampments and I vaguely remember hash marks worn above those patches.

Buttons on the dress blues were bright silver with the CAP triangle in the middle and the cutouts either said "C.A.P." or C.A.PC."

There were actually blue Nylon summer weight flight suits then, or you would see orange (mine was orange) or sage green cotton ones, worn with MA-1 or MA-1A flight jackets that were either blue or sage green. The latter had shoulder straps. I remember leather flight suit rank and hard plastic rank that was sewn directly to the flight suit.

We actually wore helmets at one point, although they were only helmet liners, and the fatigues were rugged OD green cotton that could stand up in the corner if fully starched. We'd call them cardboards at that point.

Pilots and observers wore "droop wings" and there was even a stewardess badge for wear by cadet female and maybe even senior members who completed stewardess training.

I even knew of an senior member observer with and "R" on the top of his wings. I've never seen ones like them since. I still have my first set of observer "droop" wings; they're sterling silver.

By the way, I still have my copy of "Operation Countdown."

Pilots and observers wore "droop wings" ...

 I still have my first set of observer "droop" wings; they're sterling silver.

My original observer through master observer wings were "droops".  I like them and wish we still had that style.

Any pics for some of this?  I've seen the ones posted on websites but I'm sure there's some of you out there that have an old shoebox or something with a few pics from those days.  I like the more "informal" candid ones.  They seem to have more of a story with them than the ones where everyone's posing.

Do you remember when you had to send all of the cadet achievement test to National for grading?  I believe it was Mabel Nabors who graded all of the test and she always used a red pen.  Her office was in the basement, either in or next to the old morgue.

Any pics for some of this?  I've seen the ones posted on websites but I'm sure there's some of you out there that have an old shoebox or something with a few pics from those days.  I like the more "informal" candid ones.  They seem to have more of a story with them than the ones where everyone's posing.

Check out this website:

 http://www.cawgcadets.org/activities/encampment/encampment.php#Photo

It contains quite a few candids.

Let's see......shade 1 khakis with tie tucked in between 2nd and 3rd button,

I always liked that look.

Do you remember when you had to send all of the cadet achievement test to National for grading?  I believe it was Mabel Nabors who graded all of the test and she always used a red pen.  Her office was in the basement, either in or next to the old morgue.

She was Jim Nabor's (Gomer Pyle) sister

Here's another site with some good pics and a little history:

http://wiki.cadetstuff.org/index.php?title=CAP_uniform_history

Do you remember when you had to send all of the cadet achievement test to National for grading?

No wonder the promotions are spaced two months apart. It probably took that long for all that to happen.