Questions about airborne jacket

[nkumburis]

Hello,
Today I saw a jacket with an 82nd airborne division patch on the left shoulder sleeve and on the other one it has the 17th airborne patch. My main question is why? a couple clues that might help with this mystery is that he was in the 508th paratrooper infantry regiment and he has two stars on his campaign medal. I hope this helps. If anyone has any ideas please post it. - Nick K

[MilitariaOne]

Hello,
Today I saw a jacket with an 82nd airborne division patch on the left shoulder sleeve and on the other one it has the 17th airborne patch. My main question is why? a couple clues that might help with this mystery is that he was in the 508th paratrooper infantry regiment and he has two stars on his campaign medal. I hope this helps. If anyone has any ideas please post it. - Nick K

Greetings,

The 17th Division was broken up, their units attached to the 82nd and the 13th ABN Divisions starting 14 JUN 45. Once the Japanese surrendered the units were returned to the US and the 17th Division was deactivated. Either the soldier's uniform you saw was from this "attached" period. Or the Soldier was reassigned to the 82nd as perhaps he did not have enough points to rotate home or wanted to continue to stay in an ABN unit (that was not getting deactivated). Hope this helps.

Regards,

Lance