Sgt Grit Marine Forums

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Originally posted by Kristofer
To answer part 3. A Private would not rate the blood stripe down the side of the trousers. NCO's have a blood stripe exactly 1 and 1/8th inch in width. Company and field grade officers have a stripe that is 1 1/2 inches in width. Once an officer gets general, their stripe grows to 2 inches in width.

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SgtG27:

Good job there Kris. If whenever you do make it up to the exalted rank of Cpl, make sure you buy the RIGHT bloodstripe...bad juju if you don't

Come on... anyone?  Just the other day we were raging on one of the Capt's in my sqdn cause he had the enlisted EGA on his pisscutter. 

taltos:

I will preface this by saying that these were true in the '80s and I beieve that they would be true now. These are 2 situations that will test the research skills of our newbies. I am unsure where Warrant Officers fall in these 2 situations. Situation 1: There are 2 Dress Blue covers on a table, 1 belongs to a Company Grade Officer and the other to a NCO. What is the key way to tell which is which just by looking? What was the purpose of this feature and what is it called? situation 2: There are 2 Eagle, Globe, and Anchors on a table, 1 belongs to a Captain, the other to a Corporal. What is the key feature in telling them apart? Good luck and enjoy. Paul

Sit. 1 difference between field grade officer and enlisted- officers have a coil of rope on top of the cover, this comes from the days when the Marines were used as boarding parties so that the sharpshooters in the rigging could tell the difference betrween Marines and British.

Sit. 2 on the enlisted EGA the rope is filled in all the way whereas on the officer EGA the rope is not filled in (the space in between)

Sit. 3 Pvt.-has no blood stripe. NCO- has blood stripe (blood stripe comes from the battle for Chapultepac in the Mexican-American War) and Officer- Blood stripe is 1-1/2" inches thick whereas the NCO's are only 1-1/8" 

About time to bring this thread to a close. Some great answers were given. On an Officer's Dress Cover and I assume on the green, there is a device called a quatrefoil which goes back to the time that Marines were up the masts and firing down. The quatrefoil device helped those shooters to identify friend vs foe. The difference in Officer and Enlisted blouses was indeed the fact that the Officer blouse has bellows pockets and that on the Enlisted blouse, the pocket is just for decoration and the flap is sewn down. The difference that I was looking for in the black emblems is the fact that on the Officer emblem there is actually a miniature chain where it is just cast into the emblem on the Enlisted emblem. You folks taught me things about the dress emblems that I never had noticed. Once again, well done to all and thanks to all the Marines who gave hints and clarifications during the life of this thread. Any errors of fact and in my conclusions are mine and mine alone. Thanks all.