Coast Guard uniform regulations call for Chief Warrant Officers to wear both the gold Coast Guard shield, their CWO specialty mark, and their one-stripe rank insignia on both the left and right coat/jacket sleeves of the Full Dress Blue, Service Dress Blue “Alpha,” and the Dinner Dress Blue Uniforms (not on Dinner Dress Blue Jacket Uniforms, however).
Featuring the Coast Guard shield and distinctive carpenter’s square specialty mark of Material Maintenance Chief Warrant Officers embroidered in gold thread on a square of blue serge fabric, the device is positioned so the bottom of the shield is just 1/4-inch from the top of the gold-and-blue CWO rank stripe, then centered horizontally on the outside of the sleeve. (CWOs wear gold Coast Guard shields without their specialty marks on Formal Dress Blue and Dinner Dress Blue Jacket uniforms.
The carpenter’s square that serves as the specialty mark for Material Maintenance Chief Warrant Officers was originally the insignia for—you guessed it—the Warrant Offices in the Carpentry specialty during World War. Obviously a nod to tradition since wood was already a scarce component on ships even in the first couple of decades of the 20th century, the carpenter’s square continued to be used in both the Navy and Coast Guard for the Carpentry Specialty.
By 1952, the Navy had renamed this CWO specialty Ship Repair Technician yet continued using the square as the specialty mark—but the Coast Guard preserved the designation and the mark. It’s unclear when the title was changed to Material Maintenance, but as you can see, the carpenter’s square lives on.
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