Jumpin' Jeebus... Rakow. That's a name from the past. Wally Rakow was my roommate at B/2/75. Him, me, and Conan Thornhill sharing an E-5 room on the ground floor. Squad or Section Leaders all. Back when MG(Ret) Ken Bowra was our company commander. 1979-1980 time frame.
275RLTW: Although civilians appropriating SF heraldry & graphics certainly annoy me (in a merely passing way), I could care less if a Brother exercises his earned right to do the same. Or chooses to turn a profit off of it. More power to him. I'll buy his stuff. If some civy Jody wants to wear a killer t-shirt with SF logos to help himself get laid... I could care less. I'm not talking to or otherwise interacting with him anyway. 50 million commercial uniform, gear, and clothing vendors have been turning a profit off of unit heraldry, logos, keepsakes, and graphics for decades. Why get in a twist about it?
On the internet, most of us can spot a SOF poser within a few lines of conversation or BS bio. Sometimes I ignore it. Sometimes I feed them their own rope to be hung with. Depends upon whether I feel like playing cat with a captured mouse. I've mostly got better things to do. Unless they are raking in money, position, or benefits from their lies.
In my post-Army life, I don't advertise SF. I don't wear military affiliation stuff. I don't plaster my vehicles with SF unit logos. I don't present a foothold for unwanted interest or invitation for trouble to intrude from a troubled world. Learned that from some very low key SAS folks many years ago. OPSEC. Logos are for Me-Walls, PT t-shirts, Team Parties, or SF BBQs. I operated that way while I was on Active Duty and I continue that habit in my life today. I'm not interested in visually advertising my background to total strangers.
I think that after a career spent mostly deliberately wearing sterile uniforms or indigenous regalia, most SF guys could give a shit about official Army heraldry. When GEN Shinseki decided to rape 75th for their Black Berets, my serious suggestion was to just give everyone in the Army a Green Beret instead. In return, SF personnel would have been authorized to forever wear no headgear (or headgear of their choice... like cut brim boonies or fur trapper hats), comfortable civilian boots, sterile uniforms, and keep their hands in their pockets without some uniform nazi having a stroke. You'd recognize SF in garrison the same way you did downrange. By what we didn't wear. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Figure the odds.
As noted, anyone on this forum with QP under their name has been privately vetted, in person, and is known to the rest of us. How SF posers or the occasional qualified stray are handled is a private matter. Don't worry yourself about it. In other words: "At Ease In the Harness, Ranger..."
RLTW
B/2/75