Better Know Your Servicemember

Members of the American military have worn on their uniforms an evolving array of insignia in the form of symbols, marks, emblems, and badges. These insignia collectively help distinguish an individual’s status as an officer or enlisted person, their respective rank, skill or specialty, or branch of service. Such insignia is typically found on head wear, shoulder sleeves, shoulder loops, and the collars of shirts or jackets.

In World War I, American civilians could on a whole understand if someone in uniform was in the Army or the Navy. The insignia of rank for both services remaining relatively stable for decades.

But as society as a whole had evolved in the Progressive Era, military institutions followed suit. Changes within the Army and Navy included uniforms and assorted insignia. This poster depicts both U.S. Navy insignia but also the uniforms themselves.

By 1918, General John J. Pershing, commanding the American Expeditionary Forces, authorized the 81st (Infantry) Division to wear a distinctive shoulder sleeve insignia and suggested other divisions develop distinctive designs of their own. By 1919, a virtual rainbow of designs appeared on the left shoulder of doughboys returning home from the war.

As more insignia appeared, manufacturers and collectors invariably arose to held educate the public on what the various insignia meant and why.

As America's military began to expand in the months and years prior to it entry in World War II, citizens on the home front began to see an increasing number of military uniforms and an ever-expanding array of distinctive symbols to denote occupation, skills, rank, and accomplishment.

As the nation's military grew more larger and specialized, so did the various insignia. This poster from May 1942 encapsulates the variety of U.S. Army insignia and decorations then in use. The medals depicted capture the Army's campaigns from the Civil War to World War I, as the campaign medal designs for the current conflict had yet to be completed.

Encompassing the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, this poster is even more intimidating than that for the Army.

Even the newly established Office of Civilian Defense had an array of distinctive insignia, each designed with the same basic elements to conform with the overall Civilian Defense logo.

Once American forces began moving overseas to England for the invasion of Western Europe, insignia posters went up to educate the British public about the funny insignia of their American cousins' uniforms.