5th marine bdu with panama cif stamp

i recently bought a bdu top with a 5th marine div. patch. other than the us marines name tag its only got a panama cif stamp on the inside of the jacket. i know marines dont wear unit patches so i was wondering whats the history on this type of stuff.

pictures will be up later today because lighting is an issue.

As has been discussed before, if an Army unit is attached to a Marine unit, those soldiers can wear the Marine unit patch as a combat patch.

Click here for more on this

I'm not sure to understand your question. Does the jacket have the "US Marines" or "US Army" branch tape ?

The explanations of John Brown are totaly correct if it's the "US Army" branch tape. US Marines patches are not worn by marines (except by a few pilots or aircrews), but some exist in the various camouflages (see the link posted by John Brown with some examples) and are worn by soldiers of the other branches when they are attached to a marine unit (for example a support company of the US Army attached to a MARDIV,...)

Now, if it's a "US Marines" branch tape, then there's a little problem, or this jacket was patched later as a souvenir with the patch of the unit involved. I already saw a few jackets that were patched after the conflict with some fashion patch that remember the conflict.

But I'll wait the pictures.

no name tape, outline of one that was there tho

It had a sew-on rank insignia. USMC uses pin-ons.

I didn't even notice that, hmmm still why in the eff. Is this like that. Also I found this buried at a flea market. Total. cast wasnt much

Yes, for me it's definitely not original. It's a old used BDU that was repatched later with USMC insignias. But well, on their BDU, usmc soldiers only had the name and branch tape, black metal ranks pinned, and usualy an iron on EGA.

In addition to this, this is the US ARMY Quartermaster symbol. And CIF is maybe for "Central Issue Facility" (see : http://dpclo.defense.gov/privacy/SORNs/component/army/A0600-8-101.html).