Yes, there are a lot of imposters out there. I'm not one however. One reason no one talks about it, except to each other, is because it is just too hard to explain... the jargon, the geography, etc. And the questions that get asked are pretty boring and predictable.

My twin brother served two tours with SF in Vietnam, '66-67, and most of '68. His second tour, '68, was with MACVsog and overlapped my tour. Below is a picture of the two of us taken in 1968 in Kontum, and another exactly 40 years later. I'm looking for pictures of either of us with our Randalls in Vietnam ... by the way, I do not know many SF from that era who did NOT have a Randall.



But about Randalls. Gene still has his Randall model 14. He is taking pictures to send to me to post... but actually it was his second Randall, therein lies a story.

In April '68 his spike team, Delaware, was lifted out of Laos on strings (ropes). Riding his rope, his belt broke and he almost fell... saved himself but his Randall model 14, carbon blade, teethed, fell 3,000 ft into the jungle.

Upon receiving his letter, Randall immediately rushed him a replacement, I think for free... amazing given the wait time for knives then. For the replacement, he got a Solingen blade, model 14 stainless, without teeth. Why? I now remember the intense discussions we had at the time in SF. The carbon blades would rust in a heartbeat in Vietnam. You could not keep them rust free... no way...

Second, the raw leather sheaths would attract mold in about one week. Mold would propigate visciously. Hence just about all the SF used black shoe polish on their sheaths.

I just about soaked mine (the one stolen from me) in neatsfoot oil until you could almost squeeze drops out of the leather, which turned dark dark almost black-brown and still the mold would try to appear. This is one reason you see so many "black" sheaths on Viet era Randalls. I even almost think that a Viet-era Special Forces Randall that has a sheath that is NOT black polished, was not actually a SF knife, or was not actually used in Vietnam.

I will post my brother's second knife, model 14, Solingen blade, circa 1968, survivor of many SOG missions, here when he sends me pictures. Regards.