Naval Advisory Group Viet-Nam Beret with Flash 1971. I arrived in country in early June 1970 and assigned to the Senior Naval Advisory Group - Vietnam, in the Vietnamese Naval Shipyard, Saigon RVN.
Most of the 32 man unit were older enlisted or LDO advisors, and their jobs were to oversea the variety of working areas, shops, within the shipyard. They wore several caps, literally. Some wore jungle boonie hats or six point caps with their fatigues or jungle greens, some wore overseas caps with their khakis and a few of us wore white caps or ball caps with our dungarees. But, the most interesting and common was the black beret with a unit patch/flash.
I bought one and had our unit patch sewn on the left side. Around January 1971, as I recall, a memorandum came out concerning the Navy's use of the Black Berets. It stated that the patch was to be mid-center on the right side, unlike the Army over the left eye position.
The other thing I recall about the Navy black berets for advisors was the patch or flash. It was like a mirror image of the Special Forces in that the Navy version had the Vietnamese flag running from upper right to lower left, the opposite of the Special Forces. It also had a gold border, rather than the white border.
The problem was the Navy version was harder to locate and many advisors wore what looked like the Special Forces flash with an eagle, or enlisted or Chief insignia over the flag.
It was memorable for me, in part, because when the memo came out I had to remove the flash from the left side and sew it onto the right side and then reform the shape of the beret. Things got lost and/or traded, so I had a couple of different berets during my tour.
If you look closely at my example, you will see the tie ribbon at the back, showing these patches are on the beret's right side. I believe I have that memo somewhere, and if I ever find it I will post it because it is obvious, most people didn't get the memo.
