VIDEO HERE (15:09 minutes)
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That's the steel hat I was issued. I don't know how old mine was, but I do know it was Vietnam era or earlier seeing as I could vaguely see where somebody scratched their name and a serial number starting with RA, meaning Regular Army, on the inside. I went into the army in 1978 and by that time we used our Social Security numbers rather than a serial number.
I was issued the damned thing but I rarely wore it seeing as I wasn't in a combat arms unit.
The only times I wore it was when we had an alert - we'd throw on our web gear and steel hats, draw our weapons and go to the motor pool to our vehicles where we immediately took them off and sat on them or chucked them into the backs of our trucks while waiting on the word to either move out or more often than not, fall out to the barracks and make formation to start our regular work day.
Even when we went to the field we didn't wear the damned things. I usually wore a pile cap or sometimes a soft cap. The helmets were hung above our cots and used as a basin for shaving or to take a whore's bath with.
