Kit Marking
This section is intended to address those items of kit the soldier commonly marked with their personal details in regulation form. The sort of items the soldier would mark with unit details and identifiers is covered on the Kit #1 - Uniform page.
One of the major problems when re-enacting in the field is that everyone’s clothing and equipment looks very similar. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, or while breaking down a display, it is very easy to accidentally collect another member’s Jacket, or pick up the wrong cartridge belt, mistaking it for yours. Something that you learn very early on is to mark your items so that they can be easily identified as belonging to you. There are various ways in which this can be done, but the U.S. Army actually produced an Information Circular describing the precise locations for marking individual clothing and equipment.
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Generally, items were marked with a soldier’s laundry number. Laundry numbers were special identification codes that were introduced by the U.S. Army in order to allow service personnel to quickly identify their individual equipment. The laundry number consisted of the first letter of the soldier’s last name, followed by the last four digits of his Army Serial Number. These numbers were then applied to personal equipment so that the equipment could be easily identified when mixed with items belonging to other soldiers. While laundry numbers are not unique, they were sufficiently specific within a soldier’s unit.
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Of course, lots of you won't want to mark all your original kit with the regulation details and that's fine. This information is only provided as things you can choose to do to enhance your impression.
These markings were done in many ways. Some soldier used rubber stamps that were made upon demand, others used whatever was to hand, from pens or markers to paint! Your preference on how to mark your kit is really up to you. There are specialist kits for stamping metal and leather items. We have original kits that can be brought to events should anyone like to have us stamp something.
Also note, that despite some instructions saying certain items where not to be marked, there are plenty of originals that have been stamped, so, again freedom of expression can be used.