Mike Dwyer

Daniel, Thank you very much!

Someone on another forum is trying to find out the complete name of the first commander of the 6. Westpreu?isches Infanterie-Regiment Nr.149 when it was formed in 1897. They apparently have a last name, Junghans, and they're trying to determine if this might be Friedrich Reinhold Junghans. There's a listing in the 1897 Rangliste, but with only the last name of course.

You are , of course, absolutely correct, and I knew that when I called it a busby, but I couldn't think of what else to call it. :speechless:

Sweet, very sweet! I love to see things on the forum that have a personal, family, connection.

Love that helmet! :jumping:

Wow! Very nice busby, I like it! :jumping:

Fantastic! Too bad they didn't have color photography back then. I love Henry the Lion!! :jumping:

Very, very nice looking medal!

Wonderful photo! Love that shako! :jumping:

I afraid that's only the old Southern standard, iced tea! I have some other photos, but I believe they're in a rented storage shed we have because there's just not enough room in our house for all our junk! :rolleyes:

Not a very good photo of me, but right now it's all I can locate! This was taken about 1981 when I was a deputy sheriff in Georgia. I had stopped by to eat supper at my brother-in-law's house where a birthday party was occuring. Luckily, most of my face is obscured!

Mervyn, My apologies for hijacking your thread, but while looking at the various videos of the Trooping of the Colour, I found this one segment that shows the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery from the 2008 ceremony. You had another thread some time ago where someone asked if the RHA was still around. It's about 2 minutes into the film that they appear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDMnBjoWpi0...feature=related

Thomas, The "Trooping of the Colour" is a very old British military ceremony that since 1748 has been used as the official celebration of the monarch's birthday. It's held on the second Saturday in June. Here's a short clip from the 2008 Trooping... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnPAj92Wcwk...feature=related

Based on the shoulder straps, I believe those NCO's are from F?silier-Regiment K?nigin Viktoria von Schweden (1. Pommersches) Nr.34. Since the regimental chief was the Queen of Sweden, that increases the chance those medals are Swedish and they are shaped like the Order of the Sword.

So which von Gayl is this one? Is this an older Georg?

# 11 is very nice. It's not very often you see photos from this era showing people smiling or laughing. They all, except the one sour looking fellow in the back, look like they were enjoying themselves! One of my favorite postcards of Kaiser Wilhelm II shows him in uniform, on horseback, with a cigarette in one hand, and he's laughing at something. It makes him look very human.

The King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery was still around on 6 February of this year when this photo was taken in London's Green Park after firing a royal salute marking the anniversary of Her Majesty's accession to the throne.

As to why units are turned into MP units, I can't answer that. The US Army has numerous MP units, but perhaps there aren't enough to go around, so they press others into service. Many years ago that was standard practice. My father served as an MP in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii in the early 1930's. He was actually an infantryman, but the MP unit was made up entirely of infantryman who were assigned to temporary duty as MPs. According to one web site I found the army currently has 7 MP brigades, 4 CID groups, 7 Reserve MP brigades, 1 Reserve MP-POW group and other units. I served as an MP and that's what I was trained to do and my career field was MP. I served in the 988th MP Company for a while and then the 139th MP Company. Later I served as a CID Agent in a CID Field Office which later became a Resident Agency. With all the war footing of today, the CID has changed nearly all of their "offices" back to the older system of numbered MP detachments. For example the old Fort Rucker CID Office, is now the 24th MP Detachment (CID).

As if that's not wild enough................here's a video clip of a Chilean army parade where they're goose-stepping to Preussens Gloria! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gMGiNUSpjU And another of a Chilean army band straight from the Kaiserreich, including the German march! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idKT3bycxS8...feature=related

I've always had a bit of "heartburn" about that too. To place blame for something on a state and then abolish it after subjegating it is a bit racist or anti-whatever-it-should-be-called. It's kind of like the allied propaganda that tried to place ALL of the blame for WW1 on Kaiser Wilhelm, like he started the whole thing personally. There were many, many factors that led to the war, and the allies weren't nearly as blameless as they've always claimed to be, in my opinion.

I became quickly addicted to the Braunschweig Order of Henry the Lion!!! The Hohenzollern House Order is my second favorite, followed by the Pour le Merite.

Hi, Komtur, The ICOC is about the only thing we have that has made any real attempt to work out the twisted trail of "legitimate" and "fake" orders. I fully agree that the ICOC has no power or authority. I think the key to your second quote is, "A minority of scholars disagree..." The majority, from what I've read, seem to agree that former ruling houses can still award their personal family orders, since they are family or dynastic orders, not national ones. From this point of view, the HHO is an order of the royal family of Prussia, not from the state of Prussia. I, as I'm sure you can tell, firmly believe in this view of the situation. By chivalric community I mean those who are scholars of orders of chivalry, who study chivlary, and are much more learned than I about these matters. I apologize if I hijacked your thread, I didn't mean to cause a disturbance, I just felt that the other view of the house order situation needed to be heard. It seems like I see only one side expressed on the forum. I thoroughly enjoyed the photos and the typewritten award document. The crosses you showed are very beautiful, the HHO is my second favorite order. Yes, Anhalt has pretty much destroyed its reputation in a number of ways. They aren't alone, there are others I know of that will make you a knight, or knight commander, of what I believe to be a legitimate house order, for only a few thousand of your hard earned dollars or Euros or whatever currency you use. But kings have been selling orders and titles since the dawn of time, it goes with the territory.

Some may disagree with what I'm about to say, but I have to respond. There is a difference between House or Dynastic Orders and National Orders. The chivalric community has long recognized that House Orders belong to that particular house and are not owned by the nation. They are a personal gift of the head of the house. I know nothing about what the German laws were after 1918, they may have outlawed the awarding of such orders by the former Kaiser, but outside Germany that is meaningless. As a House or Dynastic Order the Kaiser had full legal authority to award the Royal Prussian House Order of Hohenzollern, although to do so inside Germany might have violated German law. The current head of the royal house of Prussia, Georg Friedrich Prinz von Preu?en, could award the HHO right now, if he chose to, and it would be considered perfectly legitimate by the international chivalric community. Again, what the national law says may change the situation inside the country, but that has no effect on acts outside the country. There are many former ruling houses today that still award their house orders for a variety of reasons. Some for good reasons, some simply for monetrary contributions. The International Commission on Orders of Chivalry (ICOC) has a list, http://www.icocregister.org/emain.htm, of recognized orders. Under Georg Friedrich Ferdinand Prinz von Preu?en they have listed the Hohenzollern House Order, the Order of the Black Eagle, and the Louise Order as Dynastic Orders that he is still the grand master of. It is his decision whether he wishes to award these orders or not. I saw an article recently where the current Duke of Anhalt is awarding the Order of Albrecht the Bear again, and I believe the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha has awarded the Saxe-Ernestine House Order a few times also. I know H.I. & R.H. Archduke Karl of Austria (his father, Archduke Otto gave the grandmastership of the order to him a few years ago) still awards the Golden Fleece. The head of the royal house of Bavaria, Prinz Franz, Duke of Bavaria, still awards their house orders of Saint Hubertus, Saint George, and Saint Theresa.

Leigh, I'm fully with you that standardized uniforms are necessary on a multi-national assignment like the photo you showed. I would be thoroughly confused in that situation.

Leigh, Interesting thoughts. I, for one, looking at this from an American perspective, am not a big fan of standardization. As I'm sure you're aware, here in the US we have all kinds of uniforms, different colors, different syles, etc. The key here is to look for the word POLICE on the uniform or patrol car somewhere, and usually if you see a pistol, then they're police. There is such a thing as an armed security officer, but normally their shoulder patch will say SECURITY as opposed to police. Blue is a very popular color for police here in the US, but you also see other colors too. Here in the state of Florida, by state law the mandated colors for sheriffs is green, so normally sheriff's deputies are wearing dark green, although some counties wear grey with green epaulettes. The county I live in wears all dark green, but some wear white shirts, or grey shirts, and at least one used to wear a very pale green shirt. All of the city police forces in my county wear some type of blue uniform. The state troopers wear tan trimmed in black. In the scenario you mentioned about working in a multi-national situation, I can fully agree with some type of standardization, but I'm not sure it needs to be carried from country to country on a normal everyday basis. No offense to any of our German friends, but I always thought of the green and beige uniform as being utterly horrible! I lived in Berlin from 1964-1965 and back then the Berlin police wore a very 1940's grey uniform that, to me, represented what a German police officer was supposed to look like. In the winter they even wore the long, double-breasted grey overcoats. I'm sure those uniforms were phased out for being too German looking (as in Second or Third Reich), but they looked sharp. There was one particular section of the Berlin police back then that still wore the old police shako and riding boots. I've seen the new blue German uniform and while it might be a slight improvement over the green and beige one, I'm not turning cartwheels of joy over it either. Just my two cents worth, as we say here, which won't have any effect on European police uniforms. I mean if they left it up to me, the German police would still be wearing pickelhaubes! :rolleyes: