I tried my hand at a banner of my arms. Is this correct?
That looks correct. 
sure looks correct to me dear sir nice work!
Looking good.
You HAVE to make that. It looks great!
That finial in the drawing…I heard once that there was something special about in military lore, but I can’t recall what that was. Anybody know?
There’s nothing particularly special about the spade-shaped spearhead in U.S. military lore. It’s just the standard finial used with colors and other non-hoisted flags by all the services except the navy and coast guard, and they use it when they’re in joint color guards, etc. Lots of countries use spearhead finials for colors; this particular shape was popular at the time the U.S. Army instituted the use of colors so now it’s traditional (and prescribed by regulation).
That said, I’m sure the same bozos who came up with the notion that the ball on the top of a military flagpole contains a razor, a bullet, and a box of matches, or that the number of folds while folding an American flag has to do with anything other than the geometry of a 10:19 flag have also invented a symbolism for the spade-shaped spearhead.
For naval usage, see my SeaFlags website, http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeohzt4/Seaflags/finials/finials.html
I’m with you on those: the double irritation of imposing a meaning on something that didn’t particularly need one, and then claiming somwe historical or philosophical authority for said meaning.
No, this spearhead thing was more mundane than your examples. I think I was told that the design was unchanged since colonial times, maybe even the oldest unchanged piece of military equipment we have. But memory fails me.
Any other lore attached to it?
Joseph Staub;96577 wrote:
No, this spearhead thing was more mundane than your examples. I think I was told that the design was unchanged since colonial times, maybe even the oldest unchanged piece of military equipment we have.
Don’t know about its being the oldest unchanged piece of military equipment (although I’m pretty sure the Continental Army wasn’t using highly polished nickel- or chrome-plated brass), but it’s true that finials of approximately this design appear on the color pikes depicted on the original seal of the War Office, cut in 1777.
Joseph McMillan;96575 wrote:
That said, I’m sure the same bozos who came up with the notion that the ball on the top of a military flagpole contains a razor, a bullet, and a box of matches, or that the number of folds while folding an American flag has to do with anything other than the geometry of a 10:19 flag have also invented a symbolism for the spade-shaped spearhead.
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During my time in the army I was told that the ball (truck) had everything you mentioned with the addition of needle and thread, but the practice was done on remote outposts/fire bases, not as a standard procedure.
I had the fortune of serving under a CW5 who was in Vietnam who said that they did this with the flag on their fire base, but with the addition of an 7.62mm and a .30-06 to the .45. He said the truck wasn’t water tight, so when they shut the fire base down and took the flag down, everything inside of it had rusted and useless.
