Soldiers in Korea will have black berets
in time for June 14 birthday celebration
By Franklin Fisher, Taegu
bureau chief
TAEGU, South Korea — U.S. soldiers in South Korea will have their new black berets
in time for next month’s birthday ceremony.
Beginning June 14th, the Army’s birthday, the berets will begin to be phased in
Army-wide and will become one of the standard types of headgear for soldiers.
Soldiers throughout Korea, however, will don their berets "on command" in
official ceremonies set for 8:30 a.m. that day.
"That was the biggest concern, that we had the berets here in time, to be able to
make distribution to the soldiers and have it ready for the donning ceremony on June
14," said Joe Maugham, a division chief with the Army’s Material Support Command
at Camp Humphreys.
"This is a major undertaking by the Army, this is Army-wide, a lot of people
affected," he said.
United Parcel Service delivered 43,360 berets on May 11 to Incheon Airport, where the
Army received and moved them to Camp Carroll, a major logistics depot in Waegwan.
They were sorted for distribution to 306 units based in Korea.
About 12,000 leftover berets have been put in storage and will be issued as needed,
Maugham said. "As other units come in, new personnel, we then draw that down and
issue it."
Once the berets were trucked to Camp Carroll, a work force of 30 people, 26 of them
Korean nationals, unboxed them, sorted them according to size and reboxed them for their
intended units.
Three elite Army units will not wear the black berets. The Army Rangers, who lost the
privilege of wearing their black berets in a controversial and widely criticized decision,
instead will wear tan berets.
The Army’s Airborne, or paratroopers, will continue wearing their signature maroon
berets.
The Special Forces, known as the "Green Berets," will continue to wear green.
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