![\"Col.](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Col.-David-Hodne-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nI thought this was a Duffel Blog thing, but apparently not, it’s in the Colorado Springs Gazette<\/a>. This Commander of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat TEAM (caps are mine), 4th Infantry Division, Colonel David Hodne wants new soldiers to feel included when they arrive at the unit, so he is stripping away his soldiers’ badges and combat patches on their uniform while on duty, so that everyone will only have name tags, rank, 4th ID patch and an American flag on their uniform.<\/p>\n First, I’ll start out with this; That’s all I ever wore on my uniform, but that was my choice. I always said that “what you did isn’t as important as what you do”. Until my company commander told me to sew my CIB and my combat patch on – and I always do what I’m told. But, like I said, it was my choice. This colonel fellow is way off base if this is the reason he wants this to happen;<\/p>\n The colonel said he made the switch for a couple of reasons. One was to welcome new blood.<\/p>\n Hodne’s unit, which has seen a radical reorganization over the past year from tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles to eight-wheeled Strykers, is loaded with brand-new privates whose uniforms are bare of insignia. Instead of standing out, the new guys look like everyone else in training.<\/p>\n “It’s about the collective, it’s not about the individual,” Hodne explained.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yeah, that’s horseshit. That’s kindergarten-grade horseshit. I know the colonel thinks that he’s helping, but, really, he’s not. Yeah, the younger guys will feel included but you’re completely disregarding the guys who’ve been doing the heavy lifting for the past 15 years. They earned that stuff, they earned the right to wear it or not wear it. From the Army Times<\/a>;<\/p>\n “Combat patches aren’t worn to say ‘look I’ve deployed’ or ‘I love this unit’,” wrote Tom Simpkins on the Army Times Facebook page in an answer to a request for comment. “I wear mine as a scar, I wear it for every single person who deployed with me and every minute of rough times we went through.”<\/p>\n “It seems ridiculous, especially in an infantry or other combat MOSs,” Joseph Crescitelli wrote on Facebook. “It lets newer guys (such as myself) know who to look to for guidance for first person experience as well as demands that extra bit of respect.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It seems to me that colonel would feel perfectly at home handing out smiley-face stickers to his class of first-graders for their self-esteem. The younger guys need something to shoot for, they need role models more than they need to feel included.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"