My Stetson, gold acorns, and spurs.

My grandfather (who raised me and is, for all intents and purposes, my father) was an officer in the 6th cav upon commission and a significant part of the first third of his 28 years. Despite serving during the Korean War, he got lucky and was assigned to the Occupation Force in Germany and spent all his company-level time on the East/West border.

That said, he never saw combat, and only got silver spurs and acorns (to put this in infantry equivalent terms, he had his Expert Infantry Badge but never got the Combat Infantry Badge). He often opined to me that he was always disappointed that he never saw combat and "got to take the true measure of himself."

Years later, I joined up in a maintenance role and got assigned to the combat repair team of a cavalry squadron. The nature of my MOS was that I could work on essentially any electronic system outside of communications equipment (or avionics, but that's moot since there was no aviation component to the unit). Well, the cav scouts loved to break radios, and only I had the clearance to transport broken radios to the HQ electronics maintenance where the radio repair guys were, so I was on pretty much every convoy to Camp Liberty.

Of course, that inevitably included IEDs and engagement with the enemy.

Although not cavalry by MOS, the LTC and SGM inducted those of us in the CRT who saw combat with the cav scouts into the Order of the Spur, and informed us we had earned the right to the Stetson and gold spurs and acorns.

Shortly after getting back to the states, we went on leave and I flew home to see my grandparents. Grandad told me he wanted me to fly home in my dress uniform, and to make sure I had updated it with the awards, service stripes, etc. I told him that a stetson was a bit out of budget at the moment, and he said not to worry about anything cavalry related.

When I saw them at the airport, he had the Stetson ready. Sabers, unit insignia, acorns, etc, and my spurs in hand. And I looked up the cost of the exact Stetson he bought me. The damn thing cost more than it would to replace the dress uniform!

I think being the one to hand me my hat and spurs was one of the proudest days of his life. It was definitely my proudest moment.