A Boar of a Badge

WWII veterans brought back some interesting stuff. I can remember one fellow who brought back a small box of common coins which included a well worn English silver crown dated 1696! I wonder how he got that one in the early 1940’s? Sometimes how the item ended up in a G I’s hands can also be interesting. Case in point is the badge illustrated below. I’m told that this is the badge of a French unit permanently stationed in the Ardennes Fortifications before WWII. The cut out badge has a high relief boar’s head with a fortified mountain and a body of water in the background. The inscription “ARDENNES” is above and “TIENS FERME” below. Leave it to the French to design a really impressive badge. According to the son of the veteran, he thought that his father found this badge in a captured German position or in Germany itself. Granted he was not very sure but it is possible that this badge was originally taken souvenir by an invading German soldier and then in turn was liberated by an American G I who brought home the bacon to little old Iola, Wisconsin.