ChrisW

I meant to comment on these when they were originally posted... I know nothing about these specific patches, but can offer a quick and dirty translation of the Arabic: TOP ROW (left to right): - "Civil Protection" (meaning Civil Defense, Fire Brigade) - "Border Armed Service" - "National Guard -- Entrance???" - "National Guard - Border Guard" - "Higher Air Defense School something" BOTTOM ROW: - "National Achievement? School" - "National Naval School" - "Higher School for Materiel" - "Higher School for Physical Education and Sports" - "Higher School for Flying" Cheers, Chris

I've only seen shoulder slides that say "TSA" in gold or silver thread, worn by screeners at airports. Other parts of DHS -- such as Customs and Border Patrol -- wear military ranks on their shoulder slides, and of course the Coast Guard has their own rank system. Most of the TSA screeners at airports seem friendly and chatty, so it's always worth asking them. Cheers, Chris

Great photo, thanks! These guys look like Afghan or Pakistani Pushtuns. The black and white photo, and the older leather trappings, might date it to the 1970s, but it could of course be much more recent. This photo -- young Pushtun men posing with their guns, wearing black eyeliner -- is very reminiscent of the photos in Jon Lee Anderson's very nice photobook Taliban http://www.amazon.com/Taliban-Jon-Lee-Anderson/dp/0954264851/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261169982&sr=1-6 As for the writing on the back, it's probably Pushtu, possibly Dari. Your best bet getting it translated is to go to a pub near a Military Intelligence unit's basecamp!

"Pick it up" ... no pun intended, I'm sure. The book weighs 12 pounds! There are plenty of copies on Amazon, for just over the $100 mark. Like I said, it's not always accurate, but for its overall coverage it can't be beat.

I'm not a Mexico expert, but the ever-handy and enormous (if not entirely reliable) book "DPM" by Maharishi states that Mexico used several variations of this US-style "duck hunter" pattern. There's one photo, of a similar pattern on a long-sleeved jacket.

Very nice flag! My trusty Hans Wehr Arabic-English dictionary translates the first word, "fawj", as group/detachment/troop. In Iraqi Arabic it's also been used for battalion (pre-1922) and regiment (post-1922). And I would suggest an alternate translation for "fast entrance" might be something like "rapid insertion"? Cheers, Chris

This is the regular Police. Turkish Military police insignia generally say "Askeri Inzibat." Cheers, Chris

Finally, one of my favorite pictures of Nasser, during his (1955?) visit to Yugoslavia -- one of the last times he wore his military uniform, and the only photo I know of him wearing full-size medals. Among others, he wears the post-revolution "flipped" Palestine medal.

Leigh, You'll be pleased to know that, 29 years on, the Egyptian police still excel at hopping off trucks, with helmets and AKs, in vast numbers! Cheers, Chris

Original style of the Central Security Forces brassard, worn from 1977 to around 1981.

Tourist and Antiquities Police. One of many variations seen.

And a closeup of the lotus blossom on Mohieddin's ribbon. (Oh, photo credit: archive photo reprinted in Akher Sa'a magazine, March 7, 2001.)

Here's Lt. Col. Zakaria Mohieddin wearing the lotus blossom on his Palestine Medal ribbon, in a circa 1952-1954 photo. (Mohieddin was one of the Free Officers who led the 1952 revolution.)

The second known device for this medal is a brass stylized lotus blossom, a common symbol in Ancient Egypt, worn on the ribbon. This may represent the bar previously described, but that's just a guess. I'm not going to try to sketch the lotus blossom design, but it roughly looks like this (image stolen from a Google search).

Close-up of the bar.

Reverse of the medal with bar.

There are two known devices/appurtenances to the Egyptian Palestine Medal. The first is a bar, reading in Arabic "Waqa'a Filistin" which could be translated as "Palestine battles." This may indicate that the recipient saw combat. However, this bar is scarce -- I've only seen it on the medal in my possession and one at Cairo's Military Museum. Soldiers who saw combat in the war haven't been seen wearing this bar.

And the blank reverse of the post-1952 revolution version.

Following the overthrow of King Farouq in 1952, themedal was modified to remove the king’s image. The reverse of the medal became the obverse, and the former obverse with the king's image was now blank. It seems likely that not all medals were restruck with a blank reverse and reissued to the original recipients, so that recipients simply flipped their existing medals around. Here's the obverse of the post-1952 version.

Tawfiq Bichay's watercolor of the reverse of the medal.

One of the favorite pieces in my collection, a watercolor of the medal done by the designer and manufacturer Tawfiq Bichay.

Reverse of the cast version of the medal.

This is an unusual variation of the King Farouq version of the medal, which I recently acquired. It's cast rather than struck, and is rather crude. The ribbon is also a little too new and fresh looking. This makes me think it might be a fake. But the market for Egyptian medals is so small, and the prices so low, that I don't see the point of faking these.

Here's the reverse of the medal as issued.

The final design of the medal as issued modified King Farouq, so that he was presented in profile, facing left. Behind him on the left is Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque, and on the right is another mosque, which might be Cairo's Al Azhar. Above are the Arabic words "miidaaliyya filistin" or "Medal of Palestine."