Somewhere a military staff officer is scratching out a memorandum restricting the creation, use, and publicity of the long-running tradition of creating unit patches…

When Walt Disney created thousands of military unit insignia in World War II — all for free — he understood the positive contributions such insignia brought to morale, camaraderie, and the mission. While a majority of aircraft nose art faded with the end of WWII, units still supported those “intangible” military necessities with slogans, unit mottoes, and unit patches.

Decades later, those traditions continue, though relatively new widespread publicity has dampened some of those earlier spirits.

In one recent famous example, a group of atheists complained that a government office had the word “God” (Deo, actually) on their organizational patch. The unit acquiesced and replaced it with “miracles.” The atheists weren’t totally pleased, but they seemed to let it go since they’d had a victory over Deo.  As was noted at the time, unit and mission patches are often a collection of relevant imagery, inspirational quotes, inside jokes, and even subtle references to classified details. For example, a list of mission patches here explains the inclusion of a cluster of six stars on a patch is actually 5+1 — referring to Area 51.

More recently, the National Reconnaissance Read more