The Rumor Dr looks at 1st Cav’s unit history
I heard the story throughout my career whenever a 1st Cav patch was near, but the Rumor Doctor roots out the origins of the “horse that was never ridden, the river that was never crossed and the color tells you why”;
The 1st Cavalry Division’s combat patch stands out from its peers: Its silhouetted horse and line on a yellow field is recognizable from far away. But urban legend has it that there was a time when soldiers in the unit were not allowed to wear the patch in the United States.
“Story is that the division lost its colors in Korea and since the division was ‘disgraced’ the patch could not be worn in the US,” one reader wrote in an e-mail to The Rumor Doctor. “During Vietnam the division ‘regained’ its honor, ending the ban.”
Category: Historical
I was stationed at Ft. Hood with the 2AD and 1st Cav was on the same post as well. I have to admit I heard variances of the same story. Nice to hear it was B.S. I had buddies in both divisions.
Thanks Jonn for this. I’ve known this to be true for years, but continue to hear that we lost our colors in Korea. I always said…well, if we really did lose them in Korea, we sure as hell gottum’ back in Vietnam.
This has always been a slam against the honorable men of the Cav that fought well in Korea.
Someone even sang me a song once about it…don’t remember it except for: “….when you hear the patter of little feet, you’ll know it’s the Cav, in retreat.
Thanks for killing this once and for all.
Honor and Courage
FWIW, the background color of yellow represents the branch color for Cavalry. That traces back to the uniform regulations of 1855 when all branch colors were basically changed and have more or less remained constant until today.
At that time (1855) the US Army only had 2 mounted units, per se. The mounted units then extant the Dragoons, and the Mounted Rifles. The mounted Rifles were an evolution of the Dragoons, the Rifles being true light infantry mounted on horseback (the 1st mech infantry, so to speak) with the Dragoons being cavalrymen who had been trained to dismount to fight.
The Dragoons had orange trim, and the rifles green trim on their uniforms.
In 1855, two regiments of cavalry were formed, the 1st & 2ns, and given yellow for their trim.
Prior to 1855, the branch colors were as follows: Infantry: white, Artillery: yellow, Dragoons: orange, Mounted Rifles: green.
The new branch colors adopted in 1855 were: Infantry: Saxon blue, Artillery: scarlet, Medical staff: green, the rest unchanged.
In 1861, the Dragoons and Mounted Rifles were converted to cavalry, and from then on all cavalry was trained to act in both mounted and dismounted combat. Those enlisted men of the Dragoons and Mounted Rifles on the rolls at the time of conversion were allowed to wear their old trimmed jackets until they were no longer serviceable, at which time they were issued with yellow-trimmed jackets.
V/R
There’s a very similar story about the 4th Marine Regiment. The 4th was stationed all over the world up until the Japanese invaded the Philippines. The 4th became the only Marine Regiment to ever surrendered its colors and after the war it was moved to Hawaii. A rumor persisted for some time that the 4th was not being allowed to return to the continental US because of the shame of having been the only Marine Regiment to ever surrender. It also took on a string of back luck in Vietnam with terrible campaign assignments and heavy casualties while this rumor was going full steam. People even began to refer to it as “The Fucked Fourth.”
Patches are use to identify units: not just the distinctive design and colors, but the shape of them.
In WWII, the Army Cavalry divisions (there was more than one) sported the kite-shield shaped patch. Armor had a pentagon, and infantry had squares, diamonds, and the 101st had the federal shield owing to its lineage to Minnesota infantry in the Civil War. Non-divisional brigades wore/wear patches that are roman-shield shaped.
AW1 Tim – kudoes
http://www.1cda.org/divsion_patch.htm
The line is a sword belt.
I still say the horse is to remind the troopers that they’re Cav…
Money quote:
1st Cav has specialized in giving our enemies a very bad day.
Hell ya, FIRST TEAM!!!
My father was fond of saying the 1st Cav patch was “the horse they never rode, the black line was for the border they never crossed, and yellow is the reason why.” Which was something he picked up in Vietnam and never left him. He wasn’t a man afraid to start some shit LOL.
#7 Finrod
Heheheh. I like that saying… but then I am a little twisted.
Finrod
That line has started a fight or four!
http://www.1cda.org/divsion_patch.htm and somewhat excerpted from the “The 1st Cavalry Division,Vietnam August 1965 TO December 1969” page 237. History of the Patch Shortly after the 1st Cavalry Division was authorized the War Department issued a directive asking for the submission of possible designs for the 1st Cavalry Division’s “shoulder sleeve” (shoulder patch). The regulations for the competition required (1) that the patch should have only two colors, (2) that it be an easily recognizable sign around which men could reassemble during or after battle, and (3) that it would bring men together in a common devotion. The design chosen, a distinctive bright-yellow Norman knight’s shield with a diagonal stripe and the silhouette of a horse’s head, was submitted by Colonel and Mrs. Ben H. Dorcy. At the time, Colonel Dorcy was commander of the 7th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Bliss. His wife, Gladys Fitch Dorcy, later would be hailed as the “official mother” of the First Team. The Dorcy’s held an unusual edge in the design competition. They were internationally recognized experts in heraldry, the study of the symbolisms and genealogy of coats of arms. But their duty station in El Paso also had something to do with their choice of symbols for the 1st Cavalry Division patch. One afternoon in September 1921, after the patch competition had begun, the Dorcys enjoyed an especially beautiful sunset. Mrs. Dorcy was cutting up one of her husband’s old dress-blue capes. The cape’s liner was bright yellow; blue and yellow had long been the traditional colors of cavalry. At that moment, a trooper rode past their house on a handsome, blue-black thoroughbred. The design of the patch quickly took shape in their minds after this conjunction of seemingly commonplace events. Material from Colonel Dorcy’s cape liner became the yellow cloth for the first patch. The colonel drew a sketch of a Norman shield and a horse’s head on the cloth. Across the yellow field of the patch, his wife sewed a diagonal bend, symbolic of the scaling walls of enemy castles. The stripe – a “Ben Dexter” in heraldic terms – also represents a… Read more »
“The big yellow patch does something to an individual that makes him a better soldier, a better team member, and a better American than he otherwise would have been.”
General Creighton Abrams, while commander of all U.S. Forces in Southeast Asia
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“Wearing this First Team patch changes us all, to some extent. It makes us walk a little prouder and talk a little louder, because of the pride we feel for our unit. Wearing the largest patch in the Army inventory also brings with it a responsibility to be the best.”
General Peter W. Chiarelli
Commanding General of the First Team during Operation Iraqi Freedom II
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If you ain’t Cav, you ain’t shit!”
-Me-
#10 1stCavRVN11B
Thank you for the background info. I particularly enjoyed that “… Mrs. Dorcy later explained. “And we made it that way because it is worn by big men who do big things.”…”
Ya gotta realize OT that the ole man was 11B to the very bone. When I got back from the MEPS, he asked what I picked. When I said Scout, you’d have thought I said boy buggering bastard! “I thought my son was smart enough to pick something that didn’t involve him running around in front of tankers with bullets,, well shit I still got 3 more boys I guess.”
And yeah, if you ain’t Cav you ain’t shit!
1stCavRVN11Bush…..Had a big yellow one on my boonie hat when I left the Cav…not the subdued one. When I got to Nha Trang I was given a few days off. While walking through the city…known also as an NVA R&R center, I got hit in the head with a mango. I turned around and yelled…”Got someone in your family you son of a bitch!” Never saw who threw it…but I knew we’d inflicted some pain somewhere on the SOB, his friends, or family. Oh, I was also real happy it wasn’t an AK round.
FIRST TEAM!
Honor and Courage!
Dave O….actually it was a yankee Wisconsin Div…and they had a shield with an eagle tethered to it. When they would attack they would let the eagle go..still tethered, and it would screach, (scream), and thus “The Screaming Eagles” and the shield patch. AKA…Screamin’ Chickens….Screamin’ Shitbirds.
Honor and Courage
As the co-founder and 2-time past President of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association, I can accurately attest to the fact that the ‘Cav NEVER lost it’s colors, or, the right to wear it’s patch – ANYWHERE.
All these rumors are based on political hysteria, resulting from over-rationalized misconceptions by those who have NEVER been in the Military.
The 8th US Cavalry Regiment was the ONLY unit holding the 38th Parallel when 1,300,000 Red Chinese came screaming
across the border.
This is the same story my grandfather told by father when he was in the Army in the MID 1950 after Korea. Out of curiosity which unit did lose its colors? I don’t think they’re referring to the 3rd Battalion of the 8th Cavalry that was over run, right? It was a larger unit then a battalion.
#15: 1AirCav: I had my cheesers mixed with my hosers… thank you for setting me straight
The 4th Marines never surrendered their colors. When ordered to surrender on Corregidor, they BURNED the regimental colors to deny them to the enemy then surrendered as ordered by the ARMY.
My father was stationed in Japan in 51 and getting to be shipped home for discharge when he got hit with an extsention and was sent to Korea,he said it was a black unit turned and ran and that’s when Truman done away with segregated units he my dad was assigned to the 222nd engineers I know I took him to the VA in Ann Arbor Mi. and he was talking to some other vets and one asked what unit he was with and when he said the 222nd a couple oh guys said that was unit that turned and ran wasn’t it?