Regarding Band pots...the Campaign hat (Smokey Bear, drill SGT) for cadets has only been around since fall of 1973. Of course it was around "way back in the day", and had been discontinued. So from 1973-on is the present day incarnation. It was in 1973 that the color=class of the braid started.
Before, back when Corps units were divided by service branch (infantry units, artillery units etc) the braids were by branch, not class year, and folowed the U.S. Army pattern, such as light blue = infantry.
So in the interim before 1973, the "rain gear" for cadets was not the campaign hat with a plastic cover, but was the "pot", which is actually the fiberglass inner liner for a military helmet. If you see an army helmet from about 1942 to 1980 or so, it consists of a "pot" with the support webbing, and the steel liner over the top of that.
So when cadets began wearing hard hats to Bonfire, they had a ready made one, in the form of their helmet liner pot that they had already been issued as rain gear.
The regulation one was olive drab in color, with a small shield-shaped maroon and white A&M emblem on each side. It seems there was a hole in the front where the "A&M" stack could be placed, as on the front of the campaign hat, but I am not 100% sure. My class was issued the pot at first, and received the campaign hat a little into the fall semester. So we wore both at one time or another, but the pot for only a few weeks, and then only when it rained.
However, the Band, always to be different, I guess, had white pots as their issued rain gear. So naturally, Band Bonfire pots were white. These had the shield decal on each side, just like the rest of the Corps.
When I bagan work on Bonfire, most BQs did not put much if anything on their pots. After all, they had to be clean to wear if it rained. But as the campaign hat took over, some guys began putting class years or ranks or "BQ" on the pots, usually done with black electrical tape.
I suspect the more formal designs for BQ pots came after they were completely withdrawn from normal issue, and used only for Bonfire.
In my day, BQs normally did not cut, and only a few got on the stack. Our job was unloading, arranging and stacking logs on the site. We'd sort them by size coming off the truck, and carry selected logs to the base of the stack to be hoisted up and wired in.
Good times.
