St. Louis ? As the oft-told story goes, a Union general in the Civil War rode by a group of soldiers resting in the fields and shouted orders. The men refused his orders because they were not under his command. He then ordered that all Union soldiers wear cloth badges indicating their units.

“I think it was General Sherman, but I’m not sure,” said badge collector Sheldon Kirsner, 86, of Oakville, who retired as a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force.

What he knows for sure is that ever since the Civil War, the men and women of the U.S. Army have worn cloth badges or enameled metal insignia on lapels or epaulets.

Kirsner has metal insignia from each U.S. war since the Spanish-American War. He owns more than 30,000.

Now the public can see what he has been collecting. About 20,000 of his Army and Air Force insignia are on display five afternoons a week through June 5 in a historic stone building at Jefferson Barracks County Park, the Old Ordnance Room in St. Louis County. Kirsner has trained the volunteers who staff the show to help visitors find the insignia of particular units.

He has been collecting the insignia pins since he was an “Army brat,” moving with his family from base to base as his father was transferred.

In the 1930s, he would trade insignia the way others kids traded baseball cards. The best specimens he got were from soldiers on the bases. Over the years, he also sought out military tailors, morticians and soldiers being discharged to get leftover insignia.

A military family

His father was posted at Jefferson Barracks from 1933 to 1939, when Kirsner was in junior high and high school. Afterward, he enrolled at Washington University and joined its ROTC unit.

In June 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor was attacked, Kirsner graduated and hurried into the Army Air Corps to train as a pilot.

During World War II, and for his entire 28-year military career, he continued to collect insignia. The passion continued after he retired in 1969 at age 51. He moved his family to St. Louis, and he became a licorice executive at Switzer Candy Co. on Laclede’s Landing.

Elaborate collection

All the insignia in the display are from his collection. The insignia are all about 1 inch or 2 inches high. A few — made by jewelers in this country, France and China — are elaborate, multicolored enameled pieces fired on sterling silver bases. Many reflect the Art Deco designs of the 1930s. Some insignia have just two or three colors on pot metal bases. The rarest, and the thinnest, were made by Vietnamese using recycled beer cans.

“That’s all they had in Vietnam,” he said. “They are the ugliest, and they are the most valuable, because when they came home, they pitched them. Now all those veterans want them.”

His favorites include beautiful pins from China, where cloisonne enamel has been a cherished art for centuries. He’s also fond of a few by the American company Bailey Banks & Biddle Jewelers.

Many insignia have mottos on them. A careful observer, perhaps with the help of a magnifying glass, can read the tiny lettering. Mottos brim with words such as “courage,” “fortitude” and “strength.”

Unusual pieces

An Army Coastal Artillery unit, 203rd AAA, once based in southeastern Missouri, has more down-to-earth language. Its motto was, “Don’t Kick Our Dog.” Dalmatians are featured on those pins.

Cartoon characters include the Roadrunner and a long-nosed spook from the “Spy vs. Spy” cartoon. Eight insignia feature the Playboy magazine bunny logo.

“Some are pretty crude, but I didn’t put them on display,” he said.

A way to relax

Collecting always helped Kirsner relax even in the tense years of his duty, he said. He flew 35 combat missions in his bomber, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, he provided air cover on two flights from Podington air field in Northampton, England, to the beaches of Normandy.

In that war, two of the four engines on his plane were shot out. Both times he was over Peenemunde, Germany, the Nazis’ rocket development base. “Both times I got back to England,” he said.