Shave Tail

Mother, and some friends who had worked with her at the Quiz in Ord, drove to Ft. Sill for graduation. She pinned my bars on and I went back to Omaha with them for some leave time before heading to my first duty assignment. We didn’t dally around the base, first, because I was greatly relieved to be leaving with a commission, and second because it was a post requirement. Apparently some newly commissioned officers might want to get even with members of the cadre who had given them a bad time. (Remember the sequence in the movie An Officer and a Gentleman)? Requiring the “shave tails” to leave within 24 hours from the time they were commissioned avoided the problem.

“Shave tail” is a term referring to second lieutenants. It comes from the means with which officers were identified in the early days of the American army. Traditionally, officers had epaulets on the shoulders of their shirts on which to pin their insignia of rank. When an enlisted man became an officer he had to improvise, so he would cut material from the tail of his shirt and make epaulets to sew on his shoulders. Thus the term, “shave tail.”