{"id":32525,"date":"2023-01-25T11:50:44","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T18:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=32525"},"modified":"2023-01-25T11:54:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T18:54:10","slug":"ribbons-bows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=32525","title":{"rendered":"Ribbons & Bows"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Polly’s help, I finally pulled my old USAF uniforms<\/a><\/strong> down from the rafters above the garage. The plastic garment bags they’d been in since 1997 were rotted away, but the uniforms were still in good shape.<\/p>\n

I took almost everything to Goodwill. Polly salvaged a uniform windbreaker and my woolen ankle-length greatcoat, an item I recall wearing exactly once, on a freezing walking tour of East Berlin in 1981<\/a><\/strong>. The things I thought worth keeping were the ribbons, wings, and miniature medals. Oh, and the clip-own bowtie from my mess dress uniform.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"IMG_5613\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"IMG_5614\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>The bling on the left went on regular uniforms; the fancier stuff to the right on the aforementioned mess dress, worn at formal dinners. Polly asked the standard questions about the ribbons and medals. I gave her the standard answers: that one was for being there as a lieutenant; that one was for being there as a captain; those were for being there as a major, etc. Actually I think there must be a newer miniature medal set somewhere, because I remember attaining the heights of a second row before retiring … Donna will probably know where they are. By the way, I didn’t arrange those ribbons and medals: once you get past a single row of ribbons or two medals, you pay a professional to mount them on a plastic backing for you.<\/p>\n

My flying gear’s mostly long gone. There may be a couple of nomex flight suits in a duffle somewhere, but the good stuff was snapped up by our kids years ago, and by good stuff I mean the nylon and leather flight jackets. I have three helmets still, and a collection of unit scarves and dickies.<\/p>\n

Starting to look like 2023 is the Year of Taking Inventory around here. I’m not going to read too much into that thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting to look like 2023 is the Year of Taking Inventory around here. I’m not going to read too much into that thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,14,2,2878],"tags":[4157,4158],"class_list":["post-32525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flying","category-military","category-personal","category-scrapbooking","tag-careermemorabilia","tag-uniformbling"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32525"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32540,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32525\/revisions\/32540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}