U.S. Campaign Tartans

[TheKiltedCoder]

Good evening all,

I've been toying with an idea for a while (and had mentioned it to McFarkus during our kilt night several weeks ago) and thought I'd present to the rabble for comment and for a bit of a reality check.

Currently, each of the four services has a (generally) universal tartan suitable for wear. My thought was to develop a series of tartans based on modern campaign medals issued by the United States government for military service during any of the wars from Korea on forward.

As an example: some of you know that I'm a Desert Shield/Desert Storm vet. The campaign medal awarded for service in that campaign looks like this:



Based on that image, I've constructed the following tartan over at the Tartan Designer:



(For the curious, the pattern was LT5RB2W2S2LT20MG3K4 with a mirrored sett).

There are several other campaign medals with which I'd like to do this: There are the campaign badges from Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as a design for the National Defense Service Medal (for the curious, the main page for these awards can be found here).

I really like the idea of doing this, and I think the cause is worthy, but the more I think about it, the uglier the details seem to get. My entire purpose would be to generate and copyright the pattern, but I specifically do NOT want to own the copyrights or the registration. They were paid for by the men and women that earned the badges, but I'd have no idea to whom the copyrights should be assigned. I've toyed with the idea of setting up a not for profit (my Father-in-law is a lawyer by trade, and could probably help with that, or there are other lawyers in residence here that I hope would be willing to assist).

This leads into a second area: cost. According to Matt's web page, I believe that registering a custom tartan and getting a 4 yard sample was on the close order of $700. I don't know what the breakdown on that is, but, if we look at doing this for $700 per medal, we're already looking at close to $5000 for the medals I've mentioned. As much as I wish I could afford it, there's no way I could afford to cough that up out of my own pocket.

So, I guess I'm just trying to throw out an idea and am looking for suggestions as to how to make it work. My end goal would be to have registered tartans for each of those medals, generally assigned to the public domain, with the understanding that they would NOT be universal, and that anyone wearing the tartan would have been expected to have been awarded the corresponding medal.

Does this sound like a good idea to anyone? Does it sound like I've hit the Glenlivet bottle too hard tonight? Any thoughts are welcome!

Thanks,

Brian

[Coinneach]

I think you have a good idea...or at least a fun one. I know next to nothing about tartan design, so take my comments for what they're worth. I'd try to match some of the details of the original medal a bit. For example,

* widen the green strip and add a strip of black going through the middle
* lighten up the background color a bit from the tan toward something with a little more yellow in it
* I'm not sure if the color on the extreme edges is black or brown, so perhaps make the sett a bit larger with that color strip included as well. I think to preserve the order, the strip would go between the two vertical red-white-blue/blue-white-red stripes

[sharpdressedscot]

Wow, that's a really cool idea.

I think that looks great.

My father served in the Gulf war and the recent wars in the Middle East, and he's retiring in a few months, that would be cool gift...but sadly he doesn't wear kilts

[pdcorlis]

THAT is a very cool idea! The tartan works but seems just a bit busy to me - perhaps you can play with the size of the RWB overcheck to simplify the design.

[Spc. Scott]

I think that would be really cool to do. I would be interested in an Iraq tartan.

Great idea!

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Could anybody wear one of these campaign tartans, or just those eligible for the campaign medal? Or taking this a step further, how about decoration tartans? Silver Star tartan, or Distinguished Flying Cross tartan, or Purple Heart tartan-- could just anybody wear them, or only recipients?

I suppose generic "service tartans" are okay-- even if they do attract some wannabes, because they are ultimately fashion tartans without any solid military basis or foundation. But tartans based on the ribbons awarded for specific military campaigns?

No, I don't think so. People bled and died in these campaigns, and to demean their sacrifice by turning the ribbon of their campaign medal into a fashion tartan seems incredibly disrespectful of their service.

I'm sure others, less sensitive, will disagree.

[Irish in Tacoma]

I like the idea. I recently ran across the Confederate Memorial tartan, which is in the same general theme. There are a bunch of tartans that commemorate events, why not campaigns?

As for appropriateness of wear, that debate has already happened with the clan tartans vs. general wear. I'm a Desert Storm vet, but others could wear it because they are honoring their father/friend/neighbor who was there.

Wearing a campaign kilt certainly makes a bigger statement than wearing a lapel pin.

[Larry124]

KL Kilts has a “Black Watch Desert Watch” Tartan.

Given the (unfortunately) small size of the tartan wearing community, is there a sufficient demand to make something like that worthwhile?

And yes, there's the "who can/should wear it" issue.

[OFCJAX]

I like the idea!

[davedove]

There has been some sort of Iraq tartan designed. Matt showed it to us at the seminars of the Kilt Kamp.