who used to wear the “Recon” tab in the US Army?

There’s dozens of stories to answer this, and I’m not sure if any of them are true.

The main thing is that there is no recognized “Recon” school in the US military. Yes, I understand you went through 19D OSUT, but that still doesn’t allow you according to AR 670-1 to wear a “Recon” tab on your uniform.

However, if your unit allows it, then go for it. We used to wear it on our PT caps that we wore when we did missions while deployed, and on our Boonies as well.

Personally, I don’t see a problem with it. I think the big thing is it hurts the feelings of the Grunts, who want to be the only MOS in the US Army that gets to wear cool crap on their uniform (blue citation cord, blue discs on their collar brass, EIB, CIB, etc). Having a “Recon” tab somewhere on your uniform might give them a case of “Tab Envy”.

Not only that, there’s some confusion over what consitutes a “Recon” unit.

I remember doing a mission in the middle of CMTC at O-Dark-30. We were looking for a good spot on the side of a hill to set up an OP when we literally ran face-to-face with another five-man team. They didn’t look like OPFOR, so we held our fire, but remained cautious. They identified themselves as BLUEFOR. We asked them what unit they were from, and they said they were Scouts from the same battalion we were from. Since WE were the only Recon platoon in the battalion and we didn’t recognize them, we quietly took the safeties off our weapons and prepared to shoot. We told them they didn’t look familiar to us, and they told us they were from one of the Infantry companies in the battalion. It turned out they were Grunts from their company’s “Recon” platoon.

Then there’s the Grunt LRRPs. They consider themselves a Recon unit as well. We got stuck with some of those while I was in Korea.

The funniest was this Grunt company commander who kept trying to tell us we were Infantry Scouts because we were in a Mech Infantry battalion, not a Cav unit. We tried to explain that it didn’t matter what kind of unit we were in, we were still Cav Scouts, but he didn’t want to hear it.

Then there’s the time we came back from a three-day long recon/interdiction mission while deployed and tried to grab something to eat from the DFAC before it closed. We went in still cammoed and stinky, self-concious of our appearance to the other people in the facility. A group of pilots wearing Stetsons asked who we were, and we said we were Scouts. They proceeded to try and tell us they were Scouts as well, which we didn’t buy into right away. It turned out they were Kiowa pilots from another base. They actually turned out to be pretty decent since from then on, they gave us air support in future missions.

Then there’s the deal with the Marines and their Force Recon and their Recon battalions…

When people ask me what I did in the Army, I just tell them “Army Recon” since most of them have absolutely no idea what a Cav Scout is.

The best place to wear your “Recon” tab is on your Stetson anyway.

ADDED: Sorry if I was rambling…one of the bad things about being able to type fast.

Army Recon

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RE:

who used to wear the “Recon” tab in the US Army?

im a Cav Scout in the Army, and someone told me that we were authorized to wear it just like the rangers wear thiers along time ago. but appearantily the army got rid of it. Why?

Cool, i guess you caught “Heart of darkness” in story tellin mode, I dont really know anything about your question, i was just readin his stories, which are very interesting.

Hurrah, that’s what I was searching for! Thanks to author of this question.