Arrowhead Honor

Hi Jon!  My personal apologies for not responding sooner; a combination of weather, a larger filing cabinet which must be filled, and some personal health (nothing serious; just testing) issues has placed my responding and research back about four or five days.

You wrote and asked me some great questions…in short, the answer is “Yes!”  *heheheheeheee*

Let me explain….

(The words in the [brackets] are MY words and not Jon’s and only placed there for clarity sake.)

“In the 2009-10 insignia guide, the Arrowhead Honor patch is shown in multiple
positions. On the Centennial uniform it is to be worn above the [“technology”] pocket

[on the left shoulder] and below the council patch in position 2. Everything else in the

IG seems to confirm this, in the case of the Centennial uniform. Minor question: is it

still permissible to wear in position 4 below the badge of office even on the Centennial uniforms?”

No. It looks really weird, but the thought process is that nothing goes below the position patch on

the Centennial field uniform.  Since Commissioners and others earning/wearing the Arrowhead

Honor Award emblem do not belong to a unit (normally), that’s why the Arrowhead Honor would

be appropriate wear below the Council Shoulder Patch (CSP).

This may change in a couple of years when the BSA adopts the “outdoor uniform” (the Centennial

uniform isn’t going off very well, and the BSA is already looking ahead at something else — they are

merely LOOKING, not CONSIDERING anything right now!)

There is another difference: The “TRAINED” strip.  The BSA realized that the “legacy” Trained strip

is too large for the newer uniform shirts..so they created smaller versions of the strip with a green

background.  The original intent was for Boy Scouters and Scouts to wear that version; while a smaller

red backgrounded version was created for wear with the red numbers (the original Supply Division

guidance stated that it would be worn by Cub Scouters and Cub Scouts; this has been abandoned

because there’s simply too many of the red and white unit numbers out there still *smiling*).

“However, when describing the older uniform, the general placement guide for non
unit insignia shows the Arrowhead patch between the badge of office and the
trained strip.”

Yep….that’s the traditional location for the Arrowhead Honor patch.

“But then a few pages later, under the Arrowhead patch specific
information heading, it shows the trained strip in the middle instead.”

As illustration of where the Trained strip goes…

“THEN under the information for the trained strip, the same is described: trained
strip immediately below and touching the badge of office and above the arrowhead
patch.

My main question is: what gives? Which is it?”

I am working on color illustrations, Jon. because this is an example of how messed up the

Insignia Control Guide really is…

Basically:

– on the “Legacy” uniforms, the Arrowhead Honor is worn BELOW the large Trained strip.  So

the badge placement goes like this:

     CSP

(unit numbers)

Badge of office

 Trained strip

Arrowhead Honor

– on the “Centennial” uniform, the Arrowhead Honor is worn ABOVE the “Technology pocket”

and ABOVE the smaller green Trained strip so that it looks like this:

      CSP

Arrowhead Honor

Trained strip (on “technology pocket flap)

Badge of office

(where this gets all screwed is when a Commissioner, say a unit commissioner, is a Commissioner for a specific

Pack, Troop, Team, or Crew…and they wear unit numbers: the only answer I have for those Scouters is to wear the Commissioner Arrowhead Honor emblem BELOW the badge of office as if the shirt was a “legacy” shrt (remember – the “Trained” strip is worn on the pocket flap of the “technology pocket.”). The BSA hasn’t answered that question other than to emphasize that Commissioners “don’t belong to units” (they MAY if the Council is set up that way….and some Councils ARE set up to have “Commissioners” assigned directly to specific units).

I will modify the Commissioner Arrowhead Honor page along with the “Trained” strip posted in the coming weeks with color diagrams showing the “new” smaller strips, the Supply Group guidance (which as I stated has been taken back in light of the fact that while the new numbers are out there, many units STILL have the red and white unit numbers and are not giving them up!), and the locations on both “legacy” and “Centennial” uniforms for the Commisioner Arrowhead Honor emblem.

Thanks for asking….it’s a SUPER question…so great, your posting is going on my blog!

Mike Walton