dlhoovler

Thank you, everyone, both for the advice and the warm welcome! As I suspected, either red or olive would be "correct," so the best bet is just to have a casual conversation with the Scoutmaster and/or other leaders as I come on board--though casual conversations are more challenging in the midst of COVID and Zoom meetings. Or just go forward with the olive. And @Chisos, this isn't actually my original shirt from my Scout years. I've looked for that old shirt everywhere but haven't found the right box yet. Although I probably shouldn't mention that the "new" one off eBay is a size smaller than the one I wore in 1995... 😏 -David

New to the forums but not to Scouting--went from Cubs through to Eagle as a youth and have been involved with my son's Cub Scout Pack for the past four years. Now he's crossed over to a Troop, and I'm looking to update my Scouter uniform shirts accordingly--which leads to an admittedly esoteric question. I have a long-sleeve Oscar de la Renta shirt like I wore as a Scout, but what color shoulder loops and unit numbers should I wear with it? Obviously, during the era of the shirt, they were red. But aesthetically and from a uniformity standpoint, I lean toward the current olive, which is worn by most of the Scouters and all of the Scouts in the Troop. I've seen conflicting information about best practice in this case: that there's free interchangeability among components of the ODR/Centennial/current uniforms (suggesting that wearing the olive insignia would be fine), OR that older uniforms are appropriate only if they are "complete" (suggesting going with the red). But I haven't found a clear answer about current insignia on ODR uniforms--just discussions of the pre-1980 uniforms. Several of the longer-term Scouters in the Troop have ODR shirts and wear red insignia on them, most likely because they've had them for years and saw no need to update. In my case, though, I'm setting up fresh and could just as easily go either way (I also have a short-sleeve Centennial shirt I will be putting the olive insignia on, no question). I strongly doubt using either color would garner a comment from anyone in the Troop, but I'd like to be as correct as possible. Any advice? -David