Page 1 of 5 TO ALL ASA COMM UNIT VETS FRED'S CORNER NO. 1 MAY 2010 From time to time I come across some interesting military-related items that I'd like to share with you. So I'm starting a new series called "Fred's Corner." I hope you enjoy this first issue. Most of us picture the swastika as the symbol of Hitler's Nazi party. But it's been around for thousands of years and is often depicted in ancient Chinese pagodas, Indian temples, and Southwestern Native American pictographs. It was also worn as the first shoulder insignia of the United States Army's 45 th Infantry Division from 1920 to 1939. Wikipedia states that "On 19 October 1920, the Oklahoma State militia was organized as the 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma National Guard and organ i2ed with troops from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. The division was organ i2ed and federally recognized on 3 August 1923 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was assigned the 89th Infantry Brigade of the Colorado and Arizona National Guards, and the 90th Infantry Brigade of the Oklahoma National Guard. The division's original shoulder sleeve insignia featured a swastika, a common Native American symbol, as a tribute to the Southwestern United States region which had a large population of Native Americans. However, with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, which overtook the use of the symbol, the 45th Division stopped using the insignia. A new shoulder sleeve insignia featuring the Thunderbird, another Native American symbol, was approved in 1939." 45 th Infantry Division
Page 2 of 5 Speaking of shoulder patches, our old ASA patch now comes in regular, camo, and subdued to match the theatre where it is worn (Iraq, Afghanistan, desert, etc.). I pulled these scans from Vern Gruenke's ASALIVES web site shown in the next line. htto://www.asalives.orci/insicinia.html It's worth a trip to his web-site where you can sign up for free and see an incredible number of ASA badges from ASA sites around the world. You can't believe all the locations where our ASA brothers were located. In case you didn't know, ASA was disbanded in 1976 and merged into INSCOM, which now wears our proud shoulder insignia. The following is a good summary of our heritage and lineage: "The United States Army Security Agency (ASA) was, from 1945 through 1976, the United States Army's electronic intelligence branch. Its motto was "Vigilant Always." The Agency was the successor to a number of Army signals intelligence operations dating back to World War I. As well as intelligence gathering, it also had responsibility for the security of Army communications and for electronic countermeasures operations. In 1976, the USASA was merged with the US Army Military Intelligence component in a process which formed the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM).
Page 3 of 5 Composed primarily of soldiers with the very highest scores on Army intelligence tests, the ASA was tasked with monitoring and interpreting military communications of the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and their allies and client states around the world. ASA was directly subordinate to the National Security Agency and all field stations had NSA tech reps on site." Enlisted Insignia (After 2010) I don't remember where I found this, but it is interesting to see the evolution of rank insignia since our days in Germany. The E-2 is our former PFC stripe and E-3 is closer to the Marine equivalent rank. Most 1 st Sgts wore the E-8 patch in our era. Now there are 1 st Sgt patches for E-5 through E-7, including ones for the specialist ranks. I knew there were Spec-6s and up, but I never saw anything above E-5 in Frankfurt. The E-9 rank has also added an extra rocker stripe on the bottom. If I read the chart correctly, the new insignias will be superimposed in square or rectangular patches instead of the old stripe version. It should make it easier to sew on a uniform.
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Page 5 of 5 One of our ASA Frankfurt vets, J. B. Flanagan, went on to earn the E-9 Command Sergeant Major slot at DARCOM. With his prior ASA experience and security clearances, he was then selected to be the CSM, the top EM slot, at Vint Hill Farms Station, a former ASA and later INSCOM post. And don't forget the ASA Frankfurt Reunion in Cincinnati on September 16-19. If you haven't signed up and need to see the information again, send me an email. Don't miss this wonderful opportunity to reconnect with a Frankfurt buddy in person! My special thanks to Dan Thacker for his work with the pictures and photos. Fred Gerstner fgerst@verizon.net