I have heard back from my friend. Turns out I was mistaken about attending VMI. He went to The Citadel, but his brother went to VMI. They both looked it over and here are their thoughts.
"Don (VMI Class of 1978) never saw anything like this even though we speculated that it could be a recently authorized type of “Virginia Unorganized Militia” hat insignia worn by VMI professors who were never actually in the military (neither did I ever see anything similar at The Citadel). However, Texas A&M apparently does (or did at some point) officially issue hat brass of this fashion. Additionally, we viewed it close up under Google Lens and spotted what appears to be a crack under the base of the “V” which may indicate a weakened solder point (the Texas A&M brass we viewed appears to be a one-piece brass stamping, which makes better mass-production sense to us). Don says that those brass “VMI” letters were worn separately on the collar of the button-up cotton duty shirt in the 1970s, prior to VMI’s adoption of shoulder boards. So it is entirely possible that someone clipped the attachment pins from a set of the letters and soldered them to a standard U.S. Army officer cap device (it would be helpful to be able to examine the reverse of this piece for clearer evidence of soldering).
To sum up our opinion then, this piece is unlikely to have been issued to faculty or cadets at VMI and is more likely an assemblage of a U.S. Army officer cap device and VMI collar insignia. Hope this is helpful."
Terry
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20-11-22, 03:08 PM
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