Hello all, I've just joined the site so I thought I'd say hello...and while you're here any chance I could pick your brains for a bit of Beret (colour of) Guidance: I'm a former RM, ex recce troop so para trained and I've just joined RE TA, the Adjt seems to be having some confusion as to what colour beret I can/should wear. The perm staff wear a variety of black/green/maroon as applicable and there are a couple of ex regulars in maroon but he seems to think I can wear any of the 3, black or green seems a no brainer to me but I don't feel its right to don a maroon one as I was never on 5 or 16 Bde. What do you think?
To the best of my knowledge:
If you're in a unit serving under 3 Cdo (IE 131) then you wear a green lid. If you're in a unit serving under 16AA (IE 299) then you wear a maroon lid. If you're not either of those, you wear whatever everyone else is wearing.
The exceptions to this are when serving in either a recruiting post (IE AFCO) or in a training post (IE AFC). That's why sometimes you see PSIs wearing their coloured berets, as the TA post is usually part of their 'training' thing (in many Corps, all Sgts have to spend part of their career in a 'training role' - this can be at an ATR/AFC etc, or at a TA unit as a PSI, or at a Cadet Training Team). That's why you will probably also see a few floating around when you are in your training at both RTC and CMS(R). As for ex-regs doing it, shouldn't really happen, but I'd be naive to say it doesn't.
As the_creature pointed out, you are able to show that you are Para / Marine trained by wearing the respective badge. There is a pointy 'inverted cone' shaped thing with a dagger on that commando trained can wear on left arm - not the square dagger that you wear in RM. 'Army Commando' flashes (like Royal Marines Commando things, on shoulders) are not worn unless, like the beret, you are at a 3Cdo unit (131). Paras can wear wings, obviously.
But, generally, the ruling is:
Beret colour = determined by unit serving with.
Badge = determined by qualification.
Unless serving in a training or recruiting posting where you may wear the coloured beret.