worn by all-ranks. The Laotian Royal Guards received a French-style red kepi with a straight lacquered black leather peak and gold braid chinstrap to wear with their ceremonial full dress uniform. The most common headgear for the ANL personnel during the 1950s was the French M1946 "Gourka" tropical beret (), made of light khaki cotton cloth, but later the RLA standardized on a beret pattern whose design was based on the French M1953/59 model (); it was made of wool in either one or two pieces, attached to a black leather rim with two black tightening straps at the back. In the FAR, berets were still being worn pulled to the left in typical French fashion, with the color sequence for the ground forces as follows: General Service – scarlet red (the Kingdom of Laos' national color); Paratroopers, Para-Commandos and Special Forces – maroon; Armoured Cavalry – black; Military Police – dark blue. Berets made of camouflage cloth in the "Duck hunter", "Leopard", "Tigerstripe" and "Highland" patterns were also used in the field, particularly by elite units within the RLA and by the irregular SGU formations. According to the 1959 regulations, General Service and corps' berets were worn with the standard RLA beret badge placed above the right eye. Issued in gilt metal for officers and in silver metal for the rank-and-file, it consisted of a trident, symbolizing the Hindu God Vishnu, superimposed on a spinning Buddhist "Wheel of Law" (Chakra) whose design recalled a circular saw. There were however exceptions to this rule, such as the Laotian airborne battalions who retained the silver winged dagger metal airborne beret badge modelled after the French pattern previously adopted in the early 1950s, simply replacing the dagger by a Laotian trident after 1961. Laotian troops in the field could be encountered wearing a wide range of Khaki or OG jungle hats and patrol caps, ranging from French M1949 bush hats () and US M-1943 "Walker caps" and M-1951 field caps, to baseball caps, US "Boonie hats", and even South Vietnamese ARVN fatigue caps (similar in shape to the US Marines utility cap). Camouflage versions of these headpieces also found their way into the RLA and the SGUs from the United States, Thailand and South Vietnam, to which were soon added Laotian-made copies. Steel helmets, in the form of the US M-1 and French M1951 NATO () models were standard issue in the