to show all possible encouragement to the various
projects.

Ranks, Uniforms, and Decorations

Ranks conform to those in armies worldwide with a few minor exceptions.
There are the usual four general officer ranks. Field grades are
conventional and have the three most frequently used titles--major,
lieutenant colonel, and colonel. Company grade ranks include captain and
three lieutenant ranks. There are no warrant officers.

Enlisted ranks also have familiar titles when translated. Basic soldiers
hold the ranks of private and private first class. Conscripts serve their
entire tours as privates unless they acquire a speciality or are put in
charge of a small group. Corporal is the lowest noncommissioned officer
rank. Senior noncommissioned-officer grades include the ordinarily used
sergeant ranks, including one (and possibly more) that is seldom seen
but is equivalent to sergeant major or senior master sergeant.

Rank insignia tends to be ornate. All uniforms except the work and
combat types display it on shoulderboards. Those of general officers
have intricate gold designs with large gold stars. Other officer ranks
have smaller stars clustered at the outer ends and stripes running the
length of the boards. Stripes and borders on any one board are the same
color, but the various service branches have different colors to
identify them. For example, armored troops have black; frontier troops
have light green.

Enlisted men's shoulderboards have no borders, and the background color,
like the stripes and borders of the officers', indicates the service
branch. Rank is shown by stripes that run across the outer end of the
board. Privates have no stripes, corporals and privates first class have
yellow stripes, and sergeants have brass. Other devices that also
identify the service branch appear on the inward end of the
shoulderboard on all ranks except those of the general officers and
privates.

Cap insignia is more easily distinguished than that on the
shoulderboard. Enlisted men wear a large brass star. General officers
wear a star with a round blue center and red points mounted on an ornate
round background. Other officers wear the red and blue star but without
background.

There is less variety in uniforms than is common in Western and most of
the other Warsaw Pact forces. Other than for extreme weather and rough
work, enlisted men have one type of uniform for winter and one for
summer. Material for winter wear i