History
In the United States, the concept of a service stripe dates back to 1782 when, during the American Revolution George Washington ordered that enlisted men who had served for three years "with bravery, fidelity and good conduct" should wear "a narrow piece of white cloth, of angular form" on the left sleeve of the uniform coat. In the American Civil War sleeve stripes denoted a successful completion of a standard enlistment. Earlier they had been used in Napoleon Bonaparte's army, with a chevron awarded for each seven years of enlistment.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)