Silver or gold stars?

[Riley1965]

Which rank stars are used on these Air force shoulderboards, Silver or Gold?

Best,
Doc

[Nack]

I THINK it is actually a loaded question, believe it or not.

Back in the day (ie. WW2) silver stars indicated non-combat folks (eg lawyers, doctors, quartermasters), but at some point (perhaps the m58 regs) everyone got silver stars. Then, in the 60's (I think the late 60's) everyone got gold stars.

So, I guess I think the important question is: how old are the shoulderboards? If they are pre-1970, they could have silver stars on them. If they are post 1970, they need gold stars.

[Riley1965]

Thanks Nack!! I'll check them but I'm afraid I have all silver stars and these are going to need gold stars.

Best,
Doc

[Nack]

No problemo. The silver stars are easily found in quantity for next to nothing, the gold stars are a bit tougher to come by unfortunately.

They did make this stuff by the boatload, so you will find tunics after 70 with silver stars sometime, just like later-model tunics with earlier buttons. Thus, you can plausibly fudge it if you wanted until gold stars could be found :)

[Riley1965]

Nack,
I feel like fudging things a bit. I'm like a kid waiting for the batteries to be put into a toy!!! LOL:D

Best,
Doc

[Nack]

I hear that :)

I find fudging to be very "Soviet"--during wartime it was inevitable as the country couldn't turn out the stuff they needed in the quantity they needed. As the years dragged on into the 70s/80s (at least from what i've seen) disillusionment and the products of the bureaucracy lead to a lot of expression around the margins, producing stuff like the "dembel" uniform and so on.