As a former track athlete
and having seen my fair share of athletic award ceremonies, I have a general
idea of where athletic medals are placed on the human body and its usual meaning
in American society. In an average athletic competition, medals in the U.S. are
usually placed around a competitor’s neck to signify that that competitor has
earned/won recognition for a particular athletic event. In the case of
commemorative U.S. military medals, I wanted to find a very specific example to
draw parallels with this week’s course readings. After having read Sun-Young
Park’s Ideals of the Body: Architecture, Urbanism, and Hygiene in
Postrevolutionary Paris, I was very pleased with her inclusion of diagrams
which laid out the social spaces of French boarding schools and the location of
gymnasiums[1]. These diagrams are
educational as they show the placement of architecture like schools, living
spaces, and gardens in Postrevolutionary France which highly conveyed the
social expectations in public and private spaces in certain areas of France at
this time. As these diagrams illustrate certain social expectations for the
people who inhabited the buildings within them, a U.S. Army diagram can tell
its viewers of what is socially expected of members of the military when
adorning medals and insignia.
The Department of the
Army Pamphlet 670–1, a pamphlet released by the U.S. Army Headquarters in 2017,
includes many diagrams which relay the proper etiquette that members of the
U.S. military must adhere to while in uniform. My partner was very helpful in
helping me locate this diagram as he is a member of the U.S. Army, and I was
extremely thankful for his insight in the matter. The diagrams included in this
pamphlet range from the proper wear of insignia on a uniform to how an actual
U.S. military uniform should be worn. Because my item of interest this semester
is a medal, I wanted to pay particular attention to the ways that insignia and
badges are to be worn on a U.S. military uniform. Below are two of the many
diagrams in which I found helpful in showing the proper etiquette of adorning
military insignia. One shows the U.S. military standard for wearing the Army’s
branch insignia on male officer uniforms, and the other is for the placement of
the Army branch insignia on a female uniforms.
Male
Insignia Protocol:
Female
Insignia Protocol:
To allow further study into the
expectations of the Department of the Army regarding the proper wear of insignia
on the uniform, I have provided below the two excerpts from the Department
of the Army Pamphlet 670-1which further detail the Army Headquarters expectations
for the branch’s insignia to be worn:
“19–12. Branch
insignia-how worn a. As used in this paragraph, the word “collar” refers to
that part of the coat or shirt (around the neck) that forms a neckband and
turnover piece. Bold borders on figures 19–120 through 19–121 depict the collar
area. The word “lapel” is used when referring to the fold of the front of the
coat that is a continuation of the collar (usually separated by a notch in the
collar). b. Nonsubdued branch insignia. (1) Male officers. On the Army
service/dress uniform coat, male officers wear their branch insignia centered
on both lapels, approximately 1 1/4 inches below the U.S. insignia. The branch
insignia is positioned so that the centerline of the insignia bisects the
centerline of the U.S. insignia and is parallel to the inside edge of the lapel
(see fig 19–119). Except for chaplains and chaplain candidates, male officers
will not wear their branch insignia on the service uniform shirt. Male
chaplains and chaplain candidates wear their branch insignia centered
immediately over the left breast pocket (see fig 19– 120). On the black
pullover sweater, chaplains and chaplain candidates will wear their branch
insignia centered above the nameplate, in lieu of the DUI”[4].
“(4) Female enlisted. On the old
version of the Army service/dress uniform coat, enlisted females wear their
branch insignia centered on the left collar, with the bottom of the disk
approximately 1 inch above the notch , with the centerline of the branch
insignia bisecting the notch, and parallel to the inside edge of the collar
(see fig 19–124). On the new version of the Army service/dress uniform coat,
enlisted females wear their branch insignia centered on the left collar, with
the bottom of the disk approximately 5/8 inch up from center of the collar and
lapel seam, with the centerline of the branch insignia bisecting the notch, and
parallel to the inside edge of the lapel (see fig 19–125)”[5].
These examples also reminded
me of how in Kenneth Ames’
Meaning
in Artifacts: Hall Furnishings in Victorian America,
he provides the examples of calling cards: cards which were used by people of
the Victorian Era to practice social etiquette of visiting the homes of friends,
family, and acquaintances and making one’s presence known in a certain fashion[6]. As there were
expectations in the Victorian Era in which those who utilized calling cards
adhered to, so too exists expectations for Army service members and the
placement of insignia, badges, and other items on uniforms. The mandated placement
of insignia on uniforms can allow insight into the social expectations of the
U.S. Army. A uniform is not a hallway or building in which someone can stand
within and examine their surroundings and social expectations, but a uniform showcased
on the human body adorned with insignia can be deciphered as a diagram of sorts
in which viewers can ascertain why insignias are positioned in a certain manner.
[1] Sun-Young Park, Ideals of the
Body: Architecture, Urbanism, and Hygiene in Postrevolutionary Paris
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018).
[2] Headquarters Department of the
Army, Department of the Army Pamphlet 670–1, (Washington, DC, 25 May
2017), 207-208.
[3] Ibid., Department of the Army Pamphlet
670-1, 210.
[4] Ibid., Department of the Army Pamphlet
670–1, 207-208.
[5] Ibid., Department of the Army
Pamphlet 670-1, 210.
[6] Kenneth Ames, Meaning in
Artifacts: Hall Furnishings in Victorian America, (Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 9 1978), 19-46.
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