I hope to find a better detailed picture. I could go either way, wood, tape or whatever ... but the tape idea does have some support from observations: (1) the "wood grain" seems to be diagonal or at places even perpendicular to the length of the handle, which would be unusual for wood grain cut; (2) the 5-all-medium spacer stack would be unusual for a wooden handle - 7 spacers would seem to be the standard; - see Ronnies pinned m2; (3) actually a wooden, commando shaped handle might be pretty unusual... Ronnie's is the only one I've seen though surely there were others; (4) it does appear that there is a shiny something at the butt end of the handle. I doubt that is a coulee cap.
But there is no surety given the current picture resolution. I sent LTC Steve a note asking if he had additional pictures. And given the number of pics of the DSC ceremony on the net, perhaps there is a movie-you tube. We will see. It is interesting that if we could nail down the period of the knife, it would allow some reasonable and interesting inferences about the occasion.