Friday, May 13, 2011

Patch

I had to go to the store to get a new patch for my uniform and a guy in my office said, "Make sure to get the right one." Like I'm some kind of dummy. Here is the patch I bought...

Besides the color, notice anything a little weird?
It's backwards...and this is the CORRECT patch!

It turns out that there is a reason that we wear a backwards patch. The patch goes on my right shoulder so the stars are facing to the front of my body. Because we are in a combat zone, this is the combat flag...the stars lead you into battle.

Here is a pic of the patch from my other uniform.

From what I've been told it stems from the Revolutionary War. There was always a flag carrier that led the battle charge. The flag was attached along the edge of the flag that had the stars...so when he was charging...stars were at the front and stripes were flying behind. Because the flag goes on our right shoulder...stars go in the front. I'm not sure why the flag is on the right, but it is.

Coincidently, if I were working on a military base during peacetime, the flag would be the other way.

As always, this is what I've been told...I could be totally wrong.

2 comments:

  1. Another thing I would never know unless you explained it! Thanks K!

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  2. Thanks for explaining the backwards flag. I was going to ask my brother-in-law, why his flag was backwards on his uniform, but since I my first question was "why do you have a patch of a weight lifting robot on your arm?", I decided against it.
    http://co.ng.mil/arng/units/FiB/default.aspx

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