Show us your Military Patches

[Inchworm]

If you don't have any, show us one of your relatives patches.



:hi:

[Redstone]

1. What's THAT patch from, someone who played hockey?

Redstone

[Inchworm]

3. A Navy Squadron

We played the bad guys in flight ops.

I came across the patch today cleaning and was curious if others have similar reminiscent tenancies seeing theirs.

:hi:

[Redstone]

5. Sorry, but I couldn't resist...the Russian plane looked

and awful lot like a hockey stick.

Redstone

[Forkboy]

29. That was my very first thought too.

Must be the playoffs affecting our brains. :)

[Ptah]

2. Old guy here.

[Inchworm]

11. Thats Air Force right?

Seems like we had CAGs. Or, hmm.. was SAC above CAGs. Oh, I'm talking Navy btw.

:applause:

[Ptah]

15. Air Force.

I worked on B-52s





What is CAG?

[Inchworm]

20. Carrier Air Group

Sweet! B-52s! I only saw the big ones on occasion. I was always amazed how slow they seem to fly. Like a mammoth beast tooling through the sky.

I forget the chain of command now, but I think squanrons belonged to CAG's and CAG's belonged to .. to.. hell, I forget :D

:thumbsup:

[ewagner]

35. sigh....

that's mine too Oldguy...guess that makes TWO "oldguys

[Ptah]

70. 93 AMS, Castle AFB, 1971-1974

:patriot:

[huskerlaw]

55. Bellevue, Nebraska!

It's since been renamed STRATCOM, but I recognize that shield from my childhood.

My stepdad worked there in a civilian capacity.

[Ptah]

71. I should know the name of that base.

Old guy draws a blank.

:shrug:

[huskerlaw]

75. Offutt AFB

;)

[Ptah]

77. Thanks, huskerlaw.

:thumbsup:

What type of work did he do?

[huskerlaw]

79. The type he couldn't talk about at home

;)

I believe his title was "Operations Systems Analyst" and he did something w/ nuclear tipped missiles.

I was the only kid in Civics class with the relevant missiles drawn in the margins of the text next to the chapter on the SALT talks. ;)

He also knows a ridiculously large amount about the airplanes that carry said missiles...and his masters is in mathematics.

But specifically what he did, I wouldn't know.

[Captain Angry]

98. My dad was a B-52 pilot.

So he has that patch, and painting, and scarf, and and and.

As an Air Force Brat, I see the folks listing their bases. I'll list mine:

Griffiss AFB
Maxwell AFS
Minot AFB
Pentagon
Fairchild

I think we were in Biloxi when I was like 2 years old as well. Don't know what the base was.

[hobbit709]

4. AFCS 1970-73

[Inchworm]

17. That's AWACS?

With P3's tricked out?

Or am I way off, hehe

:hi:

[hobbit709]

33. Nope, We was the Air Farce long distance phone company

Sitting on a mountaintop, surrounded by antennas.

[cloudbase]

6. One of the best ever.

"Tastes Like Chicken"

509th Bomb Wing

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

7. USAF Security Service

[Inchworm]

13. Ut oh.. *looks around*

:yoiks:













;)

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

16. That's right.

You do NOT wanna mess with me.

:evilgrin:

And yes, I DID see what you just did! :rofl:

[Inchworm]

21. So.. I'm going in for...

Getting my newspaper in boxers, black socks, and work shirt?

Not again... lolz

:P

[DarkTirade]

8. Unfortunately my grandpa's stuff got moved about when we were renovating

so we have no clue where they are right now.

But he's got patches and a few medals here and there.

There was some joking in his squadron* about getting him a purple heart for the only 'injury' he got... when the guys were having 'chicken fights' (the kind involving people on each other's shoulders, not actual chickens) when they were off duty and he was the one on the other guy's shoulders... and he got dropped. :P One eyebrow is still slightly crooked because of that. He ended up with a cut across it, and it got stitched back together a little crooked. But obviously that wasn't exactly a war wound. :)




* Are they called squadrons in the army? Whatever the groups in the army are called.

[Inchworm]

9. Hehe

Cool story. :)

:hi:

[evlbstrd]

10. We didn't really wear patches.

[Inchworm]

14. Draftsman?

I had a buddy who got in it on request from above as an artist. For all I know he is still in.

:thumbsup:

[evlbstrd]

26. Yes.

Made it to E-5. If I re-upped, they were going to send me to Guam. No thanks.
I could have retired in '94, but I probably would have been a huge asshole.

[jmowreader]

12. These are my patches

I wore this patch first...



and then this patch, the Intelligence and Security Command patch...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/Inscom_patch.svg

then this patch, for III Corps...



My very favorite patch, for Field Station Berlin...



and finally, the 10th Humanitarian Division...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:10th_Mountain_Division_SSI.svg

[Inchworm]

22. Remind me to stay on your side of any debate

at the bar.

:)

:yourock:

[Blue_Tires]

51. color that triangle red and you could have fought for the klingon empire!

[DS1]

18. Close enough

[Inchworm]

23. I saw this and thought of..

Amphibious units they had at Little Creek near Virginia Beach. LOUD hovercrafts.

:hi:

[DS1]

36. You should try being inside the ship hanger bay

when one of those comes up the ramp and parks behind your tank. It is an all-emcompassing full body vibration of power. All work stops. People don't even try to talk. You just hold your ears and wait. It doesn't matter if you're inside your tank. :D

[Inchworm]

44. You can hear them for miles on land!

I had a friend ship's company on an LST. He said the noise was brutal.

:scared:

[Aristus]

19. Mine:

Delta Co., 1/69th Armored Regiment, Third Infantry Division. 1989-1991.



Third Army Strategic Replacement Reserve, King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia. Gulf War I.



Charlie Co. 1/70th CATF, 194th Armored Brigade. 1991-1993.

[Inchworm]

24. Straightforward ones

Is that a battleax as in armored knights or a fireman's ax as in damage control on the last patch?

Just curious.

:thumbsup:

[Aristus]

28. Neither. The broom and the floor-buffer.

B-)

Unfortunately, the 194th was a fairly low-morale, low-priority unit. Posted to Fort Knox, a training installation, it came in after the training units in the battle for funding. Nobody liked being assigned to the 194th. Our tanks were among the oldest in the Army. One of our M1's had a serial number of 000008. It was a bit of a let-down after being assigned to a forward-deployed, high-readiness unit in Germany.

[Twillig]

49. "Third Army Strategic Replacement Reserve"

wtf happened, over?
Go get me a can of squelch, noob. :-)

1988-1990:


1990-1991 (stoplossed!):

[Aristus]

57. It's a rather grandiose name for a bunch of individual combat platoons

sitting around in the desert waiting for a mass casualty situation so they can be inserted wholesale into a heavily depleted unit. That never happened in the first Gulf War, so two weeks after the ground war ended, we got a plane ride home.

I'll get you that can of squelch if you'll look for soft spots on the armor. Oh, also, get me a can of heater grease, and the key to the turret-traverse lock. B-)

[haele]

25. Here's some of mine -

Haele

[Inchworm]

37. AEGIS is cool stuff

If you look at the complexity of it all.

:thumbsup:

[Bravo Zulu]

27. shadow box

[Inchworm]

38. Thank you

:patriot:

[Skittles]

30. Tactical Air Command - USAF

right above the Michelob badge :D

[Inchworm]

39. Cool

You look marvelous!

:toast:

I found hella pictures cleaning too. Most were of stuff I don't remember, but I'll try to digitize a cool one :P

:)

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

46. Have I ever told you how H.O.T. HOT you look in that uniform?

...and if you feel the need to kick my ass for saying so, please put it on before you start... :evilgrin:

[trof]

89. Me too!

[Submariner]

31. Pigboater

[Inchworm]

40. Interesting history to your Sub

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Sailfish_(SSR-572)

:thumbsup:

[Submariner]

43. It was a good boat, good crew, good Skipper, and good times on liberty

[harmonicon]

87. Question:

Did people ever smoke on submarines? Like, the boys are done with their work for the day and kick back with a card game, can they smoke? It would seem kind of awful if they could/did, but it would also drive me sort of crazy if there wasn't something like that to do (yeah, I'm a smoker, but I'm assuming you couldn't sit back and get tanked either).

[Submariner]

94. Most everyone smoked

We smoked all the time at sea ('65-'69) except at battle stations, or if on lookout duty topside. Smokes were only 10 cents a pack. Tobacco smoke was almost an air freshener. The typical diesel-electric sub was a 306 foot long by 27 foot wide pipe with 90 guys inside, with the odors of sanitary tanks, fuel tanks, and hydrogen from the battery wells venting inside the boat. Add to that some garbage odor and dirty socks fumes, and the cigarette smoke from about 30 guys all smoking at the same time wasn't all that bad.

We wouldn't get tanked, but we did occasionally get a buzz popping red maraschino cherries that had been soaking in 100% pure grain alcohol we got from the corpsman.

Smoking is probably restricted if not allowed altogether on subs now.

[harmonicon]

97. thanks

I guess I never thought about those things, having only ever been on a submarine as a sort of tourist and seeing them in pristine condition. I would much rather smell smoke than socks and farts, and I imagine that even those who dislike smoking feel the same way. I would have thought that it would be considered too dangerous on a sub with all of the oil/diesel, etc, though I don't suppose it's like a car - more safety features between the user and engine. I bet it is banned now... maybe one of the navy guys who posts on here could tell us.

[Wcross]

32. We didn't wear patches but here is my units insignia.

[Inchworm]

41. Role: Armor protected firepower and shock action

I bet the other side didn't like seeing you guys crest a hill.

:thumbsup:

[YankeyMCC]

34. 4 Air Force Patches

AFCC:

Which Became AFCA:

Whic Became AFC4A:

Then I moved to ACC:

[Inchworm]

42. Hobbit709 upthread was AFCS

Guessing that is different?

:hi:

[hobbit709]

88. They changed it to AFCA later, after my time.

[YankeyMCC]

90. Actually my second day on base was pretty much taken up by

the stand down of AFCC and stand up of AFCA ceremonies. :)

[hobbit709]

91. We had our own version of the patch

At the end of the lightning bolts were a broom, a mop and a bucket.
We called it Always Fucking Cleaning Something.

[YankeyMCC]

93. lol

[Blue_Tires]

45. Trevor Paglen has a book out about the black ops patches

see some of them here, here and here....

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18067308

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=8259799&nav=menu102_2

http://photos.lasvegasnow.com/thumbnails.php?album=125

[Inchworm]

47. I didn't see a thing

;)

Thanks!

:hi:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

48. I was just a bozo on this deuce-and-a-half

:hi:

[Inchworm]

50. Am I reading correctly?

The 7th corps was only activated during a war/conflict?

I can't tell if it is a formation of units necessary to resolve, or a unit itself.

*scratches head*

:hi:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

52. Hmmm, dunno what caused activation

There was a cold war at the time. And, Vietnam was going strong, though when I was in, VII Corps was in Europe. No conflict there, except for a 7-day war in the mideast, over before we jumped in, thankfully.

Of course, units are made up of smaller units. VII corps had a few divisions in its org.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

54. Cobwebs clearing slowly ...

Wikipedia has a pretty good description
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VII_Corps_(United_States)

So it was a unit, mostly to coordinate other better-known units. The wiki sez it was HQ'd near Stuttgart for most of its existence, and that's where I was - a little town called Moehringen.

It was a pretty soft assignment during some years of nasty conflict. As a draftee, I just accepted my good fortune and enjoyed the good food and drink of Germany.

[Inchworm]

72. woot

Thanks for sharing that info. I see it clear now hehe.

:)

[speedoo]

53. No patch, but here's a pic...

USS James C. Owens, DD-776

In the Navy, if your unit was a ship and you were on the ship, you didn't need a patch to show which unit you were attached to.

That said, our motto was "Spirit of 776". And I have a plaque in storage somewhere. It includes this kind of image:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Yankee_doodle_1776.jpg&h=600&w=443&sz=41&hl=en&start=26&sig2=0uUG8Z5GG0qEmUCTg_Oq4A&tbnid=lj2sw0s8CVV5lM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=100&ei=7fwhSLfEKpXWgQLy4YHzAw&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1776%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4ADBR_enUS227US227%26sa%3DN

[Inchworm]

62. but yer ship had a patch?

:silly:

:hi:

[speedoo]

80. Well, she was a WWII destroyer, so she had lots of "patches" to keep her afloat and fighting!

But no patches on the crew uniforms.

Except for a "James C. Owens DD-776" shoulder strip that the enlisted crew wore on dress uniforms.

:hi:

[speedoo]

81. delete - dupe

[Orsino]

56. One of mine.

[Inchworm]

63. 2nd signal brigade

is a cool com unit! :)

:hi:

[Bravo Zulu]

58. two years Arctic duty, one year Viet Nam duty

I lived on this boat for a year!

"Views of USCGC POINT HUDSON (WPB-82322), Division 13, on first Saigon River patrol

[Inchworm]

64. ok- my bad

I guess I shouldn't have tried to get my daughter in the Coast Guard. They get in the shit too.

:hi:

[Release The Hounds]

59. Kansas, Korea, Maryland

[Inchworm]

65. Explain a bit if you would...

I cannot find these patches :(

:hi:

[leeroysphitz]

60. 1988-1991, 319th M.I. patch and an 101st ABN division combat patch.

and then they let me go home.

[Inchworm]

66. 319th.. hmmm...

Air refuling wing or that other one people don't talk about? :P

:patriot:

[SoxFan]

61. Guard, Reserve, and the ROTC patch

[Inchworm]

68. Your patches are infantry?

:applause:

[SoxFan]

76. They are separate infantry brigades

They have 3 batallions of infantry, an artillery bn, a support and logistics bn, and assorted platoons of military police, air defenders, etc. I was an 11-B (light infantry) and 13-F (forward observer) while enlisted, and was branched field artillery as an officer. I served with the 39th SIB (L), but was actually with the brigade's direct support 105 MM howitzer battalion.

[Glorfindel]

67. Headquarters, I Field Force Vietnam

Dec 66 to Dec 67, Nha Trang, Republic of Vietnam

[Inchworm]

69. Am I reading right?

Green Beret stuff? Training the locals to get the job done?

:hi:

[Glorfindel]

73. Yes, but I was a lowly secretary/stenographer in G2

I worked in the Grand Hotel, where the most common rank was major. I made it to E5 from private E2 in 7 months because I could type, take shorthand, and had a security clearance WAY beyond top secret. Nha Trang was not exactly a hardship post. :patriot:

[Inchworm]

74. Neat

takes all sorts to get it done :)

:patriot:

[erinlough]

78. In honor of my father

who passed away this December:



"Breaking out of the beachhead and expanding operations well into France, the Division was given the honor of being the first American unit to participate in the liberation of Paris. The Division quickly moved into the Hurtgen Forest and fought what was to be its fiercest battle. The 4th Infantry Division held its ground during the Battle of the Bulge; crossed the Rhine, then the Danube, and finally ceased its advance at the Isar River in southern Germany."

Their Motto: Steadfast and Loyal There couldn't be a better description of my dad. I miss him.

[Inchworm]

83. Awesome, thanks to your Grandpa

We wouldnt be here without that spirit.

:patriot:

[Ptah]

85. Thank you. And my father:

South Seas / Solomon Islands.

[YankeyMCC]

92. I like that idea for my Dad:

During Viet Nam - in fact he was one of the Sonar Men during the Gulf of Tonkin events

[limit18]

82. Alaska Defense Command

[Inchworm]

84. Need more info :P

:hi:

[Born_A_Truman]

86. Hubby's patches...

[Inchworm]

95. "Top Gun"

That is what our squadron did. We went from base to base being the aggressors in those operations. Some of the bases I remember were Mirimar-CA, Yuma-AZ, Fallon-NV, Jacksonville-FL, Key West-FL. I am probably forgetting some. I hated home so I went to just about every DET during my time there.

It was shore duty so I had to beg and beg to get temporary assigned to carrier going squadrons. They gave me shore duty in spite of my request to get stationed to a carrier or overseas because my wife was preggo. I spent a few months total on carriers. I'd kill to do it again :)

:thumbsup:

[Born_A_Truman]

96. Miramar NAS

He was out of Miramar NAS, got out in 1980-81. As you know, Top Gun moved to Fallon, NV and I had a tough time getting his picture after I lost the negative.

http://hooterville-holler.blogspot.com/2005/12/lost-picture.html

http://hooterville-holler.blogspot.com/2005/12/lost-picture-part-2.html

He was a RIO and his call sign was "Pablo". He has some good stories about training young pilots taking off and landing on carriers at night. To this day he can fall asleep on a dime. He said it was from sleeping under the CAT on the carriers.

My dad was stationed at Miramar NAS when he retired as a Chief in the Navy in the early 60s.