Service ribbon
A service ribbon, medal ribbon, or ribbon bar is a small ribbon, mounted on a small metal bar equipped with an attaching device, issued for wear in place of a medal when it is not appropriate to wear the actual medal. Each country's government has its own rules on what ribbons can be worn in what circumstances and in which order; this is defined in an official document and is called "the order of precedence" or "the order of wearing." In some countries, some awards are "ribbon only," having no associated medal. According to the Defense Logistics Agency, the U. S. military's standard size for a ribbon bar is 1 3/8 in wide, 3/8 inches tall, with a thickness of 0.8mm. The service ribbon for a specific medal is identical to the suspension ribbon on the medal. For example, the suspension and service ribbon for the U. S. government's Purple Heart medal is purple with a white vertical stripe at each end. However, there are some military awards that do not have a suspension ribbon, but have an authorized ribbon and unit award emblem.
The Soviet Order of Victory is a badge, worn on the military parade uniform. However, a ribbon bar representing the Order of Victory was worn on a military field uniform. Ribbon bars come in a variety of colors. In the case of the U. S. military, it maintains a specific list of colors used on its ribbons, based on the Pantone Matching System and Federal Standard 595 color systems: There is a variety of constructions of service ribbons. In some countries, service ribbons are mounted on a "pin backing", which can be pushed through the fabric of a uniform and secured, with fasteners, on the inside edge; these ribbons can be individually secured and lined up, or they can be all mounted on to a single fastener. After the Second World War, it was common for all ribbons to be mounted on a single metal bar and worn in a manner similar to a brooch. Other methods of wearing have included physically sewing each service ribbon onto the uniform garments. "Orders of wearing" define which ribbons may be worn on which types of uniform in which positions under which circumstances.
For example, miniature medals on dinner dress, full medals on parade dress, ribbons on dress shirts, but no decorations on combat dress and working clothing. Some countries maintain a standard practice of wearing full service ribbons on combat utility clothing. Others prohibit this; these regulations are similar to the regulations regarding display of rank insignia and regulations regarding saluting of more senior ranks. The reasoning for such regulations is to prevent these displays from enabling opposing forces to identify persons of higher rank and therefore aid them in choosing targets which will have a larger impact on the battlefield. In times of war, it is not uncommon for commanders and other high value individuals to wear no markings on their uniforms and wear clothing and insignia of a lower ranking soldier. Service medals and ribbons are worn in rows on the left side of the chest. In certain commemorative and/ or memorial circumstances, a relative may wear the medals or ribbons of a dead relative on the right side of the chest.
Medals and ribbons not mentioned in the "Order of wear" are generally worn on the right side of the chest. Sequencing of the ribbons depends on each country's regulations. In the United States, for example, those with the highest status—typically awarded for heroism or distinguished service—are placed at the top of the display, while foreign decorations are last in the bottom rows; when medals are worn, ribbons with no corresponding medals are worn on the right side. The study and collection of ribbons, among other military decorations, is known as phaleristics. Keith Payne, VC, OAMHis Excellency General The Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove, AK, MC Sir Hans Jesper Helsø former General and Chief of Defence. Ecuadorian General of the Army Paco Moncayo Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel Admiral of the Fleet Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma In the U. S. military, the different services have different methods of wearing ribbon bars. In the U. S. Navy, they are worn in rows of three with no spacing between rows.
For U. S. Navy members who have three or more ribbons, they can elect to wear only their three highest-ranked ones instead of all of them. In the U. S. Marine Corps, they can be worn with optional staggering. In the U. S. Army staggered with spacing in between rows. A U. S. serviceman's complete ribbon display is referred to colloquially as a "ribbon rack" or "rack" for short. Field Marshal S. H. F. J. Manekshaw Phaleristics Order List of military decorations List of prizes and awards Awards and decorations of the United States military Danish service ribbons
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U. S. federal government, after the President of the United States, ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The Vice President is an officer in the legislative branch, as President of the Senate. In this capacity, the Vice President presides over Senate deliberations, but may not vote except to cast a tie-breaking vote; the Vice President presides over joint sessions of Congress. The Vice President is indirectly elected together with the President to a four-year term of office by the people of the United States through the Electoral College. Section 2 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, ratified in 1967, created a mechanism for intra-term vice presidential succession, establishing that vice presidential vacancies will be filled by the president and confirmed by both houses of Congress. Whenever a vice president had succeeded to the presidency or had died or resigned from office, the vice presidency remained vacant until the next presidential and vice presidential terms began.
The Vice President is a statutory member of the National Security Council, the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. The Office of the Vice President organises the vice president's official functions; the role of the vice presidency has changed since the office was created during the 1787 constitutional Convention. Over the past 100 years, the vice presidency has evolved into a position of domestic and foreign policy political power, is now seen as an integral part of a president's administration; as the Vice President's role within the executive branch has expanded, his role within the legislative branch has contracted. The Constitution does not expressly assign the vice presidency to any one branch, causing a dispute among scholars about which branch of government the office belongs to: 1) the executive branch; the modern view of the vice president as an officer of the executive branch is due in large part to the assignment of executive authority to the vice president by either the president or Congress.
Mike Pence of Indiana is the current Vice President of the United States. He assumed office on January 20, 2017. No mention of an office of vice president was made at the 1787 Constitutional Convention until near the end, when an 11-member committee on "Leftover Business" proposed a method of electing the chief executive. Delegates had considered the selection of the Senate's presiding officer, deciding that, "The Senate shall choose its own President," and had agreed that this official would be designated the executive's immediate successor, they had considered the mode of election of the executive but had not reached consensus. This all changed on September 4, when the committee recommended that the nation's chief executive be elected by an Electoral College, with each state having a number of presidential electors equal to the sum of that state's allocation of representatives and senators; the proposed presidential election process called for each state to choose members of the electoral college, who would use their discretion to select the candidates they individually viewed as best qualified.
Recognizing that loyalty to one's individual state outweighed loyalty to the new federation, the Constitution's framers assumed that individual electors would be inclined to choose a candidate from their own state over one from another. So they created the office of vice president and required that electors vote for two candidates, requiring that at least one of their votes must be for a candidate from outside the elector's state, believing that this second vote could be cast for a candidate of national character. Additionally, to guard against the possibility that some electors might strategically throw away their second vote in order to bolster their favorite son's chance of winning, it was specified that the first runner-up presidential candidate would become vice president. Creating this new office imposed a political cost on strategically discarded electoral votes, incentivizing electors to make their choices for president without resort to electoral gamesmanship and to cast their second ballot accordingly.
The resultant method of electing the president and vice president, spelled out in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, allocated to each state a number of electors equal to the combined total of its Senate and House of Representatives membership. Each elector was allowed to vote for two people for president, but could not differentiate between their first and second choice for the presidency; the person receiving the greatest number of votes would be president, while the individual who received the next largest number of votes became vice president. If there were a tie for first or for second place, or if no one won a majority of votes, the president and vice president would be selected by means of contingent elections protocols stated in the clause; the emergence of political parties and nationally coordinated election campaigns during the 1790s soon frustrated this original plan. In the election of 1796, Federalist John Adams won the presidency, but his bitter rival, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson came second and became vice president.
Thus, the president and vice president were from opposing parties.
United States Department of Defense
The Department of Defense is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States Armed Forces. The department is the largest employer in the world, with nearly 1.3 million active duty servicemen and women as of 2016. Adding to its employees are over 826,000 National Guardsmen and Reservists from the four services, over 732,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2.8 million employees. Headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, just outside Washington, D. C. the DoD's stated mission is to provide "the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security". The Department of Defense is headed by the Secretary of Defense, a cabinet-level head who reports directly to the President of the United States. Beneath the Department of Defense are three subordinate military departments: the United States Department of the Army, the United States Department of the Navy, the United States Department of the Air Force.
In addition, four national intelligence services are subordinate to the Department of Defense: the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office. Other Defense Agencies include the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Defense Logistics Agency, the Missile Defense Agency, the Defense Health Agency, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Defense Security Service, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, all of which are under the command of the Secretary of Defense. Additionally, the Defense Contract Management Agency provides acquisition insight that matters, by delivering actionable acquisition intelligence from factory floor to the warfighter. Military operations are managed by ten functional Unified combatant commands; the Department of Defense operates several joint services schools, including the Eisenhower School and the National War College. The history of the defense of the United States started with the Continental Congress in 1775.
The creation of the United States Army was enacted on 14 June 1775. This coincides with the American holiday Flag Day; the Second Continental Congress would charter the United States Navy, on 13 October 1775, create the United States Marine Corps on 10 November 1775. The Preamble of the United States Constitution gave the authority to the federal government to defend its citizens: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Upon the seating of the first Congress on 4 March 1789, legislation to create a military defense force stagnated as they focused on other concerns relevant to setting up the new government. President George Washington went to Congress to remind them of their duty to establish a military twice during this time.
On the last day of the session, 29 September 1789, Congress created the War Department, historic forerunner of the Department of Defense. The War Department handled naval affairs until Congress created the Navy Department in 1798; the secretaries of each of these departments reported directly to the president as cabinet-level advisors until 1949, when all military departments became subordinate to the Secretary of Defense. After the end of World War II, President Harry Truman proposed creation of a unified department of national defense. In a special message to Congress on 19 December 1945, the President cited both wasteful military spending and inter-departmental conflicts. Deliberations in Congress went on for months focusing on the role of the military in society and the threat of granting too much military power to the executive. On 26 July 1947, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, which set up a unified military command known as the "National Military Establishment", as well as creating the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, National Security Resources Board, United States Air Force and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The act placed the National Military Establishment under the control of a single Secretary of Defense. The National Military Establishment formally began operations on 18 September, the day after the Senate confirmed James V. Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense; the National Military Establishment was renamed the "Department of Defense" on 10 August 1949 and absorbed the three cabinet-level military departments, in an amendment to the original 1947 law. Under the Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1958, channels of authority within the department were streamlined, while still maintaining the ordinary authority of the Military Departments to organize and equip their associated forces; the Act clarified the overall decision-making authority of the Secretary of Defense with respect to these subordinate Military Departments and more defined the operational chain of command over U. S. military forces as running from the president to the Secretary of Defense and to the unified combatant commanders.
Provided in this legislation was a centralized research authority, the Advanced Research Projects Agency known as DARPA. The act was written and promoted by the Eisenhower administration, was signed into law 6 August 1958; the Secretary of Defense, appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, is by federal law (1
Five-pointed star
A five-pointed star, geometrically a regular concave decagon, is a common ideogram in modern culture. Comparatively rare in classical heraldry, it was notably introduced for the flag of the United States in the Flag Act of 1777 and since has become used in flags, it has become a symbol of fame or "stardom" in Western culture, among other uses. If the collinear edges are joined together a pentagram is produced. Sopdet, the Egyptian personification of the star Sirius, is always shown with the five-pointed star hieroglyph on her head; the star is comparatively rare in medieval heraldry, but from an early time, the five-pointed star was preferred in English and Scottish heraldry, while the preferred number of points in German heraldry was six. The star in the coat of arms of the De Vere family was in legend attributed to the First Crusade, when "a white star did light and arrest upon the standard of Aubre de Vere"; the de Vere star is notorious in English history, because in the Battle of Barnet in 1471, the white star of the Earl of Oxford was mistaken for the white rose of Edward IV by the Earl of Warwick, so that he erroneously attacked his own ally, losing the battle, which changed the outcome of the entire War of the Roses.
The five-pointed stars on the Flag of the United States were introduced in the Flag Act of 1777. The Flag Act did not specify any particular arrangement, number of points, nor orientation for the stars and the arrangement; some flag makers arranged the stars into one big star, in a circle or in rows and some replaced a state's star with its initial. One arrangement features 13 five-pointed stars arranged in a circle, with the stars arranged pointing outwards from the circle, the so-called Betsy Ross flag; the American flag shown in the painting Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumbull shows twelve stars arranged along the outline of a rectangle with an additional star in the center. Five-pointed stars became more used in the 19th century; the coat of arms of Valais, adopted for the Rhodanic Republic, was designed with twelve five-pointed stars. The flag of Chile, introduced in 1817, has a single five-pointed star known as La Estrella Solitaria; the similar flag of Texas was introduced in 1839.
The star and crescent used by the Ottoman Empire was shown with an eight-pointed stars in early forms, but was changed to a five-pointed star in the official flag in 1844. Numerous other national or regional flags adopted five-pointed star designs in the 19th to early 20th century, including Venezuela, Philippines, Cuba and Jordan; the Flag of Minnesota and 1901 Maine Flag both utilized the 5-pointed design. The five-pointed star came to be used in military badges in the 19th century. A red star was used as the badge of XII Corps of the Union Army in the American Civil War, while VII Corps used a five-pointed star in a crescent. In 1916, a five-pointed red star was used by the U. S. Army Signal Corps' aviation section; the American tradition of barnstars, decorative five-pointed stars attached to buildings, appears to have arisen in Pennsylvania after the Civil War, became widespread by the 1930s. The Swiss 1 and 2 francs coins introduced in 1874/5 showed the figure of Helvetia surrounded by 22 stars, enumerating the Swiss cantons.
The green five-pointed star used as a symbol of Esperanto was first proposed in 1890. The five-pointed Red Star as a symbol of communism was adopted during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, its origin is unknown. The red star is featured on the state emblem of the Soviet North Korea. Another variant is a yellow star on red background, as on the state emblem of Vietnam and the People's Republic of China, as well as on the flags of most Communist countries. In the 1930s, red luminescent Kremlin stars were installed on five towers of the Moscow Kremlin, replacing gilded eagles that had symbolized Imperial Russia. Since it is customary to install looking red stars atop New Year trees in the Soviet Union, a tradition that continues to this day in Russia. In the Emblem of Italy, adopted in 1947, the five-pointed star represents the "Star of Italy"; the "Flag of Europe", designed in 1955 on behalf of the Council of Europe and adopted by the European Communities in 1985 has a circle of twelve yellow stars on a blue field.
The use of "star" for theatrical lead performers dates to 1824, giving rise to the concept of "stardom" in the film industry. The Hollywood Walk of Fame, where famous entertainers are honored with pink terrazzo five-pointed stars along Hollywood Boulevard, was introduced in 1958. In association football, there is a tradition of using five-pointed stars in team badges to represent victories; the first team to adopt such a star was Juventus, in 1958, to represent their tenth Italian Football Championship and Serie A title. The star was formally adopted by some organisations as a symbol for ten titles, the ratio of one star for ten titles has become the most common arrangement. Five-pointed stars may be used on elevators to indicate the ground lobby of a building, they are used on various police and paramedic badges. As a symbol or emblem, the five-pointed star, or mullet of five points, arises from classical heraldry, it shares none of the esoteric or occult associations given to the pentagram, or "Seal of Solomon", since at least the Renaissance period.
The two emblems are associated
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial and space warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the five branches of the United States Armed Forces, one of the seven American uniformed services. Formed as a part of the United States Army on 1 August 1907, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the U. S. Armed Forces on 18 September 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act of 1947, it is the youngest branch of the U. S. Armed Forces, the fourth in order of precedence; the USAF is the largest and most technologically advanced air force in the world. The Air Force articulates its core missions as air and space superiority, global integrated intelligence and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, command and control; the U. S. Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense; the Air Force, through the Department of the Air Force, is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, who reports to the Secretary of Defense, is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation.
The highest-ranking military officer in the Air Force is the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who exercises supervision over Air Force units and serves as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Air Force components are assigned, as directed by the Secretary of Defense, to the combatant commands, neither the Secretary of the Air Force nor the Chief of Staff of the Air Force have operational command authority over them. Along with conducting independent air and space operations, the U. S. Air Force provides air support for land and naval forces and aids in the recovery of troops in the field; as of 2017, the service operates more than 5,369 military aircraft, 406 ICBMs and 170 military satellites. It has a $161 billion budget and is the second largest service branch, with 318,415 active duty airmen, 140,169 civilian personnel, 69,200 reserve airmen, 105,700 Air National Guard airmen. According to the National Security Act of 1947, which created the USAF: In general, the United States Air Force shall include aviation forces both combat and service not otherwise assigned.
It shall be organized and equipped for prompt and sustained offensive and defensive air operations. The Air Force shall be responsible for the preparation of the air forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war except as otherwise assigned and, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of the peacetime components of the Air Force to meet the needs of war. §8062 of Title 10 US Code defines the purpose of the USAF as: to preserve the peace and security, provide for the defense, of the United States, the Territories and possessions, any areas occupied by the United States. The stated mission of the USAF today is to "fly and win...in air and cyberspace". "The United States Air Force will be a trusted and reliable joint partner with our sister services known for integrity in all of our activities, including supporting the joint mission first and foremost. We will provide compelling air and cyber capabilities for use by the combatant commanders. We will excel as stewards of all Air Force resources in service to the American people, while providing precise and reliable Global Vigilance and Power for the nation".
The five core missions of the Air Force have not changed since the Air Force became independent in 1947, but they have evolved, are now articulated as air and space superiority, global integrated intelligence and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, command and control. The purpose of all of these core missions is to provide, what the Air Force states as, global vigilance, global reach, global power. Air superiority is "that degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another which permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea and special operations forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force". Offensive Counterair is defined as "offensive operations to destroy, disrupt, or neutralize enemy aircraft, launch platforms, their supporting structures and systems both before and after launch, but as close to their source as possible". OCA is the preferred method of countering air and missile threats since it attempts to defeat the enemy closer to its source and enjoys the initiative.
OCA comprises attack operations, sweep and suppression/destruction of enemy air defense. Defensive Counter air is defined as "all the defensive measures designed to detect, identify and destroy or negate enemy forces attempting to penetrate or attack through friendly airspace". A major goal of DCA operations, in concert with OCA operations, is to provide an area from which forces can operate, secure from air and missile threats; the DCA mission comprises both passive defense measures. Active defense is "the employment of limited offensive action and counterattacks to deny a contested area or position to the enemy", it includes both ballistic missile defense and air-breathing threat defense, encompasses point defense, area defense, high-value airborne asset defense. Passive defense is "measures taken to reduce the probability of and to minimize the effects of damage caused by hostile action without the intention of taking the initiative", it includes warning.
United States Armed Forces
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States of America. It consists of the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard; the President of the United States is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and forms military policy with the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, both federal executive departments, acting as the principal organs by which military policy is carried out. All five armed services are among the seven uniformed services of the United States. From the time of its inception, the U. S. Armed Forces played a decisive role in the history of the United States. A sense of national unity and identity was forged as a result of victory in the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War. So, the founders of the United States were suspicious of a permanent military force, it played a critical role in the American Civil War, continuing to serve as the armed forces of the United States, although a number of its officers resigned to join the military of the Confederate States.
The National Security Act of 1947, adopted following World War II and during the Cold War's onset, created the modern U. S. military framework. The Act established the National Military Establishment, headed by the Secretary of Defense, it was amended in 1949, renaming the National Military Establishment the Department of Defense, merged the cabinet-level Department of the Army, Department of the Navy, Department of the Air Force, into the Department of Defense. The U. S. Armed Forces are one of the largest militaries in terms of the number of personnel, it draws its personnel from a large pool of paid volunteers. Although conscription has been used in the past in various times of both war and peace, it has not been used since 1973, but the Selective Service System retains the power to conscript males, requires that all male citizens and residents residing in the U. S. between the ages of 18–25 register with the service. On February 22, 2019, however, a federal judge ruled that registering only males for Selective Service is unconstitutional.
As of 2017, the U. S. spends about US$610 billion annually to fund its military forces and Overseas Contingency Operations. Put together, the U. S. constitutes 40 percent of the world's military expenditures. The U. S. Armed Forces has significant capabilities in both defense and power projection due to its large budget, resulting in advanced and powerful technologies which enables a widespread deployment of the force around the world, including around 800 military bases outside the United States; the U. S. Air Force is the world's largest air force, the U. S. Navy is the world's largest navy by tonnage, the U. S. Navy and the U. S. Marine Corps combined are the world's second largest air arm. In terms of size, the U. S. Coast Guard is the world's 12th largest naval force; the history of the U. S. Armed Forces dates to 14 June 1775, with the creation of the Continental Army before the Declaration of Independence marked the establishment of the United States; the Continental Navy, established on 13 October 1775, Continental Marines, established on 10 November 1775, were created in close succession by the Second Continental Congress in order to defend the new nation against the British Empire in the American Revolutionary War.
These forces demobilized in 1784. The Congress of the Confederation created the current United States Army on 3 June 1784; the United States Congress created the current United States Navy on 27 March 1794 and the current United States Marine Corps on 11 July 1798. All three services trace their origins to their respective Continental predecessors; the 1787 adoption of the Constitution gave the Congress the power to "raise and support armies", to "provide and maintain a navy" and to "make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces", as well as the power to declare war. The President is the U. S. Armed Forces' commander-in-chief; the United States Coast Guard traces its origin to the founding of the Revenue Cutter Service on 4 August 1790 which merged with the United States Life-Saving Service on 28 January 1915 to establish the Coast Guard. The United States Air Force was established as an independent service on 18 September 1947. S. Signal Corps, formed 1 August 1907 and was part of the Army Air Forces before becoming an independent service as per the National Security Act of 1947.
The United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps was considered to be a branch of the United States Armed Forces from 29 July 1945 until its status as such was revoked on 3 July 1952. On March 1st, 2019, the Department of Defense sent a proposal to Congress that would establish the United States Space Force as an independent military service within the Department of the Air Force. If approved, this would become the sixth military service branch to be created. Command over the U. S. Armed Forces is established in the Constitution; the sole power of command is vested in the President by Article II as Commander-in-Chief. The Constitution presumes the existence of "executive Departments" headed by "principal officers", whose appointment mechanism is provided for in the Appointments Clause; this allowance in the Constitution formed the basis for creation of the Department of Defense in 1947 by the National Security Act. The DoD is headed by the Secretary of Defense, a civilian and member of the Cabinet.
The Defense Secretary is second in the U. S. Armed Forces chain of command, with the exception of the Coast Guard, under the Secretary of Homeland Security, is just below the President and serves as the
Colonel (United States)
In the United States Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, colonel is the most senior field grade military officer rank above the rank of lieutenant colonel and below the rank of brigadier general. It is equivalent to the naval rank of captain in the other uniformed services; the pay grade for colonel is O-6. The insignia of the rank of colonel, as seen on the right, is worn on the officer's left side. By law, a colonel must have 22 years of service and a minimum of three years of service as a lieutenant colonel before being promoted; the insignia for a colonel is a silver eagle, a stylized representation of the eagle dominating the Great Seal of the United States. As on the Great Seal, the eagle has a U. S. shield superimposed on its chest and is holding an olive branch and bundle of arrows in its talons. However, in simplification of the Great Seal image, the insignia lacks the scroll in the eagle's mouth and the rosette above its head. On the Great Seal, the olive branch is always clutched in the eagle's right-side talons, while the bundle of arrows is always clutched in the left-side talons.
The head of the eagle faces towards the olive branch, rather than the arrows, advocating peace rather than war. As a result, the head of the eagle always faces towards the viewer's left. However, when worn as a single insignia with no matching pair, such as on the patrol cap, garrison cap/flight cap, or the front of the Army ACU, there is a split between the services on which mirror image of the eagle should be worn. In the United States Army and United States Air Force, the eagle is always worn with "the head of the eagle to the wearer's right," with the olive branch clutched in the eagle's right hand talons. In the United States Marine Corps, United States Navy, United States Coast Guard and NOAA, the eagle is worn with "the head facing forward" on the wearer's right side of the garrison cover. Since respective service's officer insignia is worn on the left side and the rank insignia is worn on the right hand side of the Marine, Coast Guard and NOAA garrison caps, the eagle is facing to the eagle's left with the olive branch clutched in the eagle's left hand talons, a mirror opposite to the wear of the single eagle for Army and Air Force officers.
The United States rank of colonel is a direct successor to the same rank in the British Army. The first colonels in the U. S. were appointed from Colonial militias maintained as reserves to the British Army in the North American colonies. Upon the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, colonial legislatures would grant commissions to men to raise a regiment and serve as its colonel. Thus, the first U. S. colonels were respected men with ties in local communities and active in politics. With the post-war reduction of the U. S. Army, the rank of colonel disappeared, was not re-introduced until 1802; the first insignia for the rank of colonel consisted of gold epaulettes worn on the blue uniform of the Continental Army. The first recorded use of the eagle insignia was in 1805 as this insignia was made official in uniform regulations by 1810; the rank of colonel was rare in the early 19th century because the U. S. Army was small, the rank was obtained only after long years of service. During the War of 1812 the Army grew and many colonels were appointed, but most of these colonels were discharged when their regiments were disbanded at the war's conclusion.
A number of other colonels were appointed by brevet - an honorary promotion for distinguished service in combat. The American Civil War saw a large influx of colonels as the rank was held in both the Confederate army and Union Army by those who commanded a regiment. Since most regiments were state formations and were raised, the colonels in command of the regiments were known by the title "Colonel of Volunteers," in contrast to Regular Army colonels who held permanent commissions. During the Civil War, the Confederate Army maintained a unique insignia for colonel, three stars worn on the collar of a uniform. Robert E. Lee wore this insignia due to his former rank in the United States Army and refused to wear the insignia of a Confederate general, stating that he would only accept permanent promotion when the South had achieved independence. After the Civil War, the rank of colonel again became rare as the forces of the United States Army became small. However, many colonels were appointed in the volunteers during the Spanish–American War, prominent among them Theodore Roosevelt and David Grant Colson.
World War I and World War II saw the largest numbers of colonels appointed in the U. S. military. This was due to the temporary ranks of the National Army and the Army of the United States, where those who would hold the rank of Captain in the peacetime Regular Army were thrust into the rank of colonel during these two wars; the Military Promotion System was revised and standardized for all the services in 1980 as a result of passage of the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act. Modern U. S. colonels command Army infantry, armor, aviation or other types of brigades, USMC regiments, Marine Expeditionary Units or Marine Aircraft Groups, USAF groups or wings. An Army colonel commands brigade-sized units, with another colonel or a lieutenant colonel as deputy commander, a major
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