Army lore and pseudo history

The origins of the "blue falcon"...

**disclaimer**. This is an oral history, unconfirmed, possibly wrong on many levels and definitely not intended to offend!!

So there I was, no S***. ...

A good portion of the leaders that I had in my early years in the army were Vietnam veterans. They told us stories of being in the "S***", the Nam, and generally hilarious and scary stuff for a new kid to hear when they first come to a unit.

Here is the story of how the term blue falcon came to be. First you need a visual, in order to appreciate this story google search images of the rank specialist 5 6 7 8 and 9.

So the Army had this non leadership rank called specialist. Basically a higher pay grade to do a technical aspect of a job. You could hypothetically be an E9 specialist in your MOS. The stripes on the specialist rank were bent rockers, which were deemed "soft or limp" because the specialist was not in a leadership position. A CPL could tell a specialist 7 to "at ease!".
So the center of the specialist rank is the "full bird". With the rank on the dress uniform being blue, these senior specialists were called "blue falcons" for their avoidance of "harder duties" such as leadership. Of course the B and F line up quite conveniently with you know what words.

I wish I had the AFN music playing in the background for this history segment...

Again, to any of the former or current specialists out there, this is just a story as I heard it from way back before you were born...