Grim's Hall: National Tartan Day II: Military Issue

National Tartan Day II: Military Issue

The weaving of plaid is prehistoric in Scotland and Ireland, apparently following patterns that were specific to localities only because particular families knew how to weave them. The use of symmetrical "tartan" to identify a particular clan is 19th century, and was part of the industrial effort to systematize the Highlands. It probably grew out of the use of such tartans to create military uniforms, famously including the Black Watch, a loyal-to-the-government-in-England unit that patrolled the highlands against rebels and their ilk.

US Marine Corps "Leatherneck" Tartan (Unofficial)

There are very many military tartans, too many for a useable post. After the jump, I will put up some of them, but only for the American military. I will not include the Confederate military, though it is officially considered part of the American military by Federal law; they had several, as you might imagine given the heavy Scottish highlander ancestry in the Appalachians, especially North Carolina, which provided more combatants than any other state in that conflict. I will only include current-service US military units.

I will also not include veterans' associations, such as the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association, purely for the sake of brevity. There are lots of those too.