Most of the comments that I read whenever a Shinseki thread pops up seems to be dominated by those who remember the beret debacle, but who don’t know the whole story. I provide it herewith for whatever you wish to make of it.
The Real History of the Beret
Whenever General Shinseki’s name comes up, a large contingent of sore heads pipe up with epithets and complaints about his role in the adoption of the black beret as standard Army headgear. Most of these comments are ill informed and display profound ignorance of the history of this uniform item in the U.S. Army. Since I have been around for many of the events surrounding the use of the beret in the U.S. Army, I thought it might be useful to tell the real story.
Other armies have worn berets since at least World War I. American Army interest in them seems to date from World War II when British elite units tended to wear them: maroon for airborne, green for commando, and black for tank units. The tankers claimed to be the first to wear them in the British Army when they adopted them in WWI for wear inside greasy and dirty tanks and the black color tended to hide the grime. Black became a semi-official color for tankers in most armies around the world, but was not exclusive to that arm of service. None of this mattered much to the U.S. Army because the beret was never officially adopted and despite rumors that it was worn by Rangers, little evidence exists to substantiate this. In any event, the US ended both World War II and Korea with no berets.
In about 1960, Major General William P. Yarborough commanded the still young Special Warfare Center at Ft. Bragg. He had been an airborne pioneer and was the designer of the airborne qualification badge (jump wings). He was a fan of the beret and of many other things British and thought that the beret would be a great item of distinction for Special Forces. Berets had been worn in Special Forces unofficially and secretly prior to that time, but it was Yarborough who brought it out of the closet. Special Forces had settled on green in part because that was the color of the Commando beret, but also because Rogers Rangers, an American Unit in British Service during the French and Indian Wars had worn green Tam O Shanters, a headgear that resembled a beret. At that time, Special Forces carried the lineage and traditions of American Ranger units.
Yarborough, who was known to have a set of brass balls, chose the occasion of President Kennedy’s visit to Ft. Bragg to publically unveil the Green Beret. Kennedy liked them and said so, saving Yarborough a large a$$ chewing and giving Special Forces their green beret. In those days, you didn’t earn your beret, except through assignment to a Special Forces unit, or a unit supporting the Special Warfare Center. Anyone so assigned wore the green beret: clerks, aviators, Psyops, etc. Those who were not SF qualified did not wear the full size unit flash, instead they wore a small bar in the colors of the unit flash. There was no beret ceremony, unless the supply sergeant took a special liking to you. The flash, not the beret was the thing.
In Vietnam, no one wore berets in the field, but around the base camp, in Nha Trang, Pleiku, and elsewhere they abounded. Special Forces wore their green berets. Advisors to Vietnamese units wore the same berets worn by their counterparts: red in the airborne division, black by the armor units and Vietnamese Rangers. Unlike the American and British practice where the beret was pulled over the head from left to right, the Vietnamese followed French practice and pulled in over from right to left. The advisors followed suit. When American LRRP and Ranger units started unofficially wearing berets, they adopted the black color of the Vietnamese Rangers, but wore them in American fashion. These were condoned but not authorized as were many other pieces of headgear that proved very popular on firebases and clubs especially when nurses or USO volunteers were about. Most units that did this claimed to be elite in one way or another.
After Vietnam, most of this stuff disappeared until the advent of the Volunteer Army when, in the interests of attracting America’s youth to a new volunteer Army, an era of any goes was born. Headgear was no exception and berets of all shape and color blossomed along with multicolor baseball caps, cowboy hats, and probably beenies with propellers on top though I don’t remember seeing any of these. This was when the maroon beret came to the airborne forces and tankers at Ft. Hood and the two armored cavalry regiments went with the traditional tanker black beret. This was also the time when the Army reactivated Ranger units, forming battalion sized organizations for the first time since WWII. They wore the black beret as worn unofficially by the Ranger companies in Vietnam. When the Army finally came to its senses and banished these abominations, Special Forces, Airborne troops, and the Rangers were the only ones left with sanctioned berets. The tankers lost theirs despite some very intense lobbying and behind the scenes arguments by the tanker community led by GEN Don Starry.
When the Army stood up a permanent opposing force at Fort Irwin, the tankers were able to sneak through their black beret as the uniform of the opposing force. Starry and many in the armor community continued to lobby for the black beret for tankers, arguing its history and noting that they had no EIB, no CIB and no qualification badges and/or tabs. Shinseki was a part of the armor community, but he was a Major and Lieutenant Colonel during this time frame and was not a leader in this effort – that was GEN Don Starry.
Starry, and others, tried a number of times to get the Army to adopt the beret as the standard headgear. The efforts failed time and time again for various reasons, but never because they were the exclusive right of SF, Abn, and Rangers. Once, GEN Gordon Sullivan, a tanker and Army Chief of Staff was prepared to authorize the beret for the entire army until he looked at himself in the mirror wearing one. That initiative ended then and there.
Shinseki gets the blame because he was the guy who finally made a decision years in the making and because of his hamfisted approach to choosing the color and finessing his decision with the Ranger Regiment. Black was chosen simply because it was the standard color for uniform accessories: raincoats, sweaters, shoes, ties, etc. Had he gotten the Ranger Regimental Commander to request a change of color to Ranger OD, or Commando tan before he made the announcement, there would have been less fuss, except that the beret is just not a very good choice of headgear. This is especially true today since GEN George Casey, the current Army Chief of Staff has decided to combine jump boots with dress blue trousers, security guard white shirts, and a beret into something called an Army uniform, but looks more like the drill team of the Gay Caballeros Marching Band.
So Shinseki gets a bad rap on this one in my opinion. Likewise the Stryker issue, at least in the opinion of most Stryker veterans of Iraq. He’s fair game on his political inclinations, but he played that pretty close to the chest until he was out of uniform, as he should have done.
Disclaimer: I know and served with Rick Shinseki and found him to be a professional and competent soldier. I didn’t know his politics then and certainly don’t agree with whom he’s decided to encamp. Of course, in Hawaii, where he’s from there is no Republican party much like my native Arkansas when I was young and a Democrat. He is an Armor officer, hence no CIB or EIB. All Regular Army officers in his era were required to go to Ranger School. He saw considerable combat service in Vietnam and lost part of a foot in addition to other wounds. I much prefer the Ranger Tan beret to the black one – much more distinctive and no danger of being mistaken for a tanker and have long thought that the Ranger s are too good to be still sniveling over this one.
Well, you give a good account of the history of the beret, but I all I ever saw was a ‘pot’ and baseball cap. In addition, just a ‘pisscutter’.
ROFLMHO.
I work with several NCO's who say they will retire before they wear the "new" Class A uniform. They get funeral detail at least once a month and are waiting for the directive to wear it - that is when the retirements go in.
General Eric Shineski
I am sorry, but that is BS. It was a crummy decision on his part. I am no "sore head" as you put it. I believe elite units should not have their identity dumbed down and normalized so that everyone feels they are elite.
Your use of language such as sniveling to describe people who don't share your view is your prerogative - but it isn't accurate or objective.
What Eric Shineski did was was implement a cheap tactic. That wasn't, and isn't, leadership.
Got it and know the history as i wore the black one as a tanker before going to SF. Was there for most of the period inclusive of Shinseki wearing my green beanie. But i still had little use for him and some of the policies he went along with under Clinton the Corruptible. I commend him for his service in VN, but he still became too political for my tastes - but then i state the obvious since in order to make general you have to have political aspirations or clout or both.