AW Pin What is this pin? (The actual pin is approximately 7/8 of an inch across.)
Frankly... I don't know. I've put an image of it here in an attempt to find out.
This is what I know about it: I found it in a box that my dad kept his World War II memorabilia in. Dad served as a T-5 (Technical Corporal) in the U.S. Army as a medic in the 396th Medical Collecting Company from September 1942 till October 1945, including about 9 months starting in January of 1945 in France, Belgium, France, Germany and France again.
I have three theories as to the source of the pin:
One possibility is that it is one of the items dad picked up somewhere in his travels 1942-1945. Dad kept a plethora of small things as diverse as a book of matches from a National Co-Ops in Chicago, to various items of U.S. and Nazi insignia... including small items from various European countries.
Another possibility is that it is something that Dad found somewhere and stuck it in the box for anything from a good reason to no reason at all. Unfortunately after he got to be about 90 years old dad "reorganized" the box and added some "stuff" that was at best only tangentially related to his military service.
My best theory is that it might possibly be something of my mother's, something perhaps actually related to the war. In other words, though the stylized letters on the pin can perhaps be read several ways... as "AN" or "AW"... or possibly even as "A V V"... I think that maybe it is an "AW" and that it might stand, perhaps, for "Army Wife". However, in considerable searching on the world wide web I could find no similar emblem.
If anyone who reads this page can identify the meaning and significance of this pin, please contact me by e-mail at rw@pone.com
This page was created by Richard White
on 20 July 2005