TRUMP GUARDS

[RayThom]

Wanna' bet this style of uniform returns to the White House after Friday? Respect will no longer be earned... it will be demanded.

Achtung baby!

[Burning Petard]

I wish the military history of those gold braids looped around the arm pit and ending with a symbolic nail was more widely taught to those who wear them.

snailgate.

[wesw]

is that...., ELVIS!!!! ????

[Big RR]

BP--I can recall members of some army divisions or regiments (or the like) wore such decorations which were awarded to the unit during WW2 , and I imagine they learned what the history of those were, but there are other more generally worn (like I think all infantry personnel wear a blue one), which are more ornamental than anything else and don't really have all that much of a history.

[Burning Petard]

The decoration comes from the Army of Napoleon. After a battle in which one major unit performed very badly, Napoleon issued them such decorations--a length of rope with a loop on one end and a nail on the other. Instructions came with the equipment, that if they ever retreated again, they were to put the nail in a limb of a tree and the other end around their neck and hang themselves. They never retreated again, at least under Napoleon.

snailgate

[Guinevere]

That's probably untrue. The most likely reason to wear aiguillettes on military uniforms is as remnants of cord used to tie together body armor, and dates to well before Napoleon.

So says my Swede (former naval officer). And wiki.

[Big RR]

I've never heard that BP; I've always heard that they were based on the cords that originally tied armor together, with the nail being used to thread the cord (I see guin heard this as well). But I like the Napoleon story better (then again, I doubt a retreating soldier would follow the order and hang himself).

[RayThom]

More on the aiguillette and nail. (Scroll down to "206. The origin of the aiguillette.")
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/l ... forms.html

[Burning Petard]

So who you gonna believe--me with my faulty memory of instructions received in high school ROTC, the cite from Ray quoting US Navy historian who says it is essentially my story, but from a Spanish duke, not Napoleon, or some descendant of criminals on the other side of the world on some big island noted for an excess of rabbits and bad brush fires within its major cities, as cites the authority for the version in Wikipedia? I never noticed Mad Max using anything like it to lace together his armor.

But back to the picture up above--what ever happened to Nixon's palace guard? At the time it gave me as big a laugh as CinC Carter's amphibious rabbit attack.

snailgate

[Lord Jim]

But back to the picture up above--what ever happened to Nixon's palace guard?

In 1970, President Richard Nixon changed the White House Secret Service’s uniforms most dramatically.

According to Richard Reeves’ President Nixon: Alone in the White House, Nixon felt that the present uniforms were “too slovenly.” An upcoming visit by Prime Minister Harold Wilson of Great Britain was a good excuse to upgrade the uniforms.

The uniforms, inspired by ones that Nixon had seen on honor guards in Europe, featured “double-breasted white tunics, starred epaulets, gold piping, draped braid, and high plastic hats decorated with a large White House crest.”

The uniforms were roundly criticized in the press. One columnist said that they looked like old-time movie ushers’ uniforms. Another noted that the uniforms borrowed their style from “decadent European monarchies.”

They lasted 2 weeks.

http://www.invisiblethemepark.com/2013/ ... istration/

[Big RR]

Who doesn't love a plastic hat?

I think I ate at an Indian restaurant once where the waters were dressed like that.

[Bicycle Bill]

Get 'em some drums, bugles, and a flag line, and they're all set to go.



-"BB"-

[Guinevere]

I'll believe my sailor, thank you.

[rubato]

The following is another version:

In the very early days before knights wore metal armor, they wore coats of thick bull hide or sole leather which laced up the back. At it was impossible for them to "button" such a coat, the act had to be performed by their squires, who were required to carry a supply of stout leathern thongs pointed with the "tooth-pick bones" taken from the leg of a buck, or some kind of metal point such as our common shoestring has at this day. The story goes that the squire carried these thongs in a small roll or bundle hanging over his shoulder and from this has gradually developed the idea of an aide or adjutant wearing the aiguillette as the badge of his office.

This version gains plausibility from the fact that "Aglet" is the modern word for the metal or plastic covering on the end of a shoelace.


yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

So modern it's been around since 1500 or so.

noun
1. a metal or plastic tag or sheath at the end of a lace used for tying, as of a shoelace.
2. (in the 16th and 17th centuries) an ornament at the end of a point or other ribbon used to secure a garment.
3. aiguillette (def 1).

[wesw]

you missed his point Ausberger s boy

your hatred makes you stupid

yrs

the Delmarva fox squirrelo

[Scooter]

More on the aiguillette and nail. (Scroll down to "206. The origin of the aiguillette.")
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/l ... forms.html

"The Duke of Alva, a Spanish General, having had cause to complain of the conduct of a body of Flemish troops, which had taken flight, ordered that any future misconduct on the part of these troops should be punished by hanging the delinquent, with [sic] regard to rank or grade.

"The Flemings replied that to facilitate the execution of this order, they would hereafter wear on the shoulder a rope and a nail, which they did, but their conduct became so brilliant and exemplary, that this rope was transformed into a braid of passementerie, and became a badge of honor, to be worn by officers of princely households, the pages, and corps d'elite," etc., etc. (Translated from Larousse's Grand Dictionary of the XIX Century)."

.
It's Alba, not Alva. He commanded Spanish troops who were in the Netherlands putting down a rebellion. He did not rely on Flemish troops or any other Flemish institutions, which he suspected of being sympathetic to the rebellion.

And it happened in the 16th century, by which time the term aiguillette had been used for at least 200 years to denote an item of English and French military uniforms
The Marines tell a different story, btw, claiming that the Grand Dictionnaire Larousse says that the Alba story is the origin of the fourragere, not the aiguillette.

And trying to fasten a noose to a tree with a nail seems pointless when there are branches it could be thrown over and tied off.

[wesw]

alva is pronounced alba en espanol anyway.

spellings can be interchangeable and variable.

both are probably correct.

that s what senora parker told me in ninth grade Spanish anyway....

[Scooter]

I suspect he spelled his name only one way, regardless of what others may have done. The Marines spelled it "Alve" on their website. It's not significant in itself, but such inconsistencies would be odd when supposedly drawn from an encyclopedic source. It would also be odd for Larousse to miss a more direct, better documented and much, much older etymology in favour of a tenuous link to an event lacking historical corroboration.

It makes a moving statement about serving with honour, which is probably why it has such traction in military circles.