MovieChat Forums > The Best Years of Our Lives (1947) Discussion > HOW COULD AL BE A BANKER BEFORE THE WAR?

HOW COULD AL BE A BANKER BEFORE THE WAR?

posted 7 years ago by SMC
5 replies | jump to latest

Master Sergeant Al Stephanson has six hash marks on his left lower left sleeve plus a chevron. Each hash mark represents three years of service. That means he's been in the army at least 18 years. So how come the story line says that he was a banker before the war, fought in WW2, was discharged and is now being rehired at his old bank in a new position. There is no way he joined the army in 1927 and was discharged in '45. You don't live in that nice apartment on army pay. I think the wardrobe department took poetic license with Al's uniform. Medals and hash stripes everywhere.

[–] hilaryjrp 7 years ago

Wow, thanks for the information. I hope one of the regulars answers this.

[–] deerslayer1964 7 years ago

If you look at his sleeve you'll see the 5 gold hash marks you are referring to and below that there is a darker diagonal hash mark. The darker diagonal hash mark is for 3 years of service and each of the 5 more obvious gold hash marks represents 6 months over sea duty, so he was in the service 3 years with 2 1/2 years over seas.

[–] turtletommy 7 years ago

You got it deerslayer1964, the 1 darker diagonal bar (hash) is a service stripe- denoting 3 years of service, while the 5 light horizontal bars on the sleeve are overseas service bars- denoting 6 months of service overseas for each bar= so he served 3 yrs and 2 1/2 of that was overseas.
Here's an image of Al's uniform sleeve: https://goo.gl/KoLNDZ

[–] movies789 7 years ago

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the long diagonal bar and the short horizontal bars indicate minimum time periods, not exact periods. Thus, the diagonal bar indicates three years or more of overall service, but less than six, and the five short bars reflect 2 1/2 years or more of overseas service, but less than three years overseas. And, all this assumes that his uniform accoutrements were up-to-date (which they probably were, since he was just mustered out, presumably with freshly updated new uniforms).

[–] liscarkat (16476) 4 years ago

Great information! I've still got my dad's WWII uniform, the most up-to-date one he had when he was discharged in February of '46. I'll have to dig it out of the trunk and check out the stripes.