Our USAF Chief of Staff service cap is the most expensive piece of headgear we sell because of the large quantity of silver bullion employed in the embroidery of the “clouds and darts” ornamentation not only on the cloth-bound cap visor, but also on the hatband. The intricacy of the embroidery is breathtaking, and the contrast provided by rich blue of the hat fabric and the luminous silver used for the clouds and lightning bolts is eye-catching but not jarring.
The service cap designed for the USAF Chief of Staff is also worn by any Air Force General who has been named as the Chairman or Vice Chairman of the JCS.
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Both the U.S. Air Force and Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) were created through the same piece of legislation, the passage of the National Security Act of 1947. In its original configuration, the JCS consisted of a Chairman, the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and the Air Force, and the Chief of Naval Operations. In the 1970s, the law was amended to make the Commandant of the Marine Corps a sitting member of the JCS, and in 2012 the Chief of the National Guard Bureau was also added as an official member of the JCS.
The other most notable changes to the structure of the Joint Chief of Staff came in 1986 when the Goldwater-Nichols Act changed the status of the Chairman from what was known as “first among equals” to the “principal military advisor” to both the Secretary of Defense and the President. The Act also established the position of Vice Chairman of the JCS to aid the Chairman and, in the Chairman’s absence, to preside over meetings and carry out other duties prescribed by statute (Title 10 § 153 of the U.S. Code).