1st Infantry Division Big Red One Embroidered Patch – U.S. Army

The most-told story about the red "1" starts with a general cutting the numeral out of his own red flannel underwear, and a young lieutenant telling him the general's underwear was showing. The general told him to do better, and the lieutenant's olive drab shield with a red "1" became the first version of the patch. The other version of the story credits the big "1" painted on the side of every division supply truck in France. The 1st Infantry Division was constituted on 24 May 1917 as the First Expeditionary Division and organized on 8 June 1917 at Fort Jay on Governors Island, New York. Its motto has not changed: No Mission Too Difficult, No Sacrifice Too Great, Duty First!

The first units sailed for France on 14 June 1917, and on 23 October a 1st Division artillery unit fired the first American shell of the war toward the German lines. The 28th Infantry took Cantigny, the first American victory of the war, and the division went on to Soissons and the Meuse-Argonne. In World War II it landed at Oran on 8 November 1942 in Operation Torch, fought through Kasserine Pass and led the attack at El Guettar, then came ashore at Gela on Sicily. On 6 June 1944 it was in the first wave at Omaha Beach, took Aachen on 21 October 1944, and fought in the Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge. Vietnam brought Operations Attleboro, Cedar Falls and Junction City and the Thunder Road missions on Highway 13, and in 1991 the division fought the Battle of Norfolk in Operation Desert Storm.

The patch is a shield, 2.5 inches wide by 3.75 inches tall, cut square across the top and tapering to a point at the bottom. The field is olive drab with a narrow stitched border, and the only other thing on it is a tall red numeral "1" with a flat serif base. There are no words, no motto and no unit name, and none are needed. Anyone who has stood in formation at Fort Riley, or walked past a veteran at a parade, reads it before he reads anything else. The edge is cut flat to the embroidery and the backing is iron-on, though it takes a needle well if you would rather sew it.

Some units at Omaha Beach lost about 30 percent of their men in the first hour, and the division kept moving inland. In Vietnam, between July 1965 and April 1970, the Big Red One counted 6,146 soldiers killed in action and 11 Medal of Honor recipients. Later tours took it to Ramadi, to Tikrit with Task Force Danger, to Baghdad, and to Regional Command East in Afghanistan in 2012. Soldiers call it the Fighting First, and some of the saltier names the troops gave it are part of the lore too. Fort Riley, Kansas, has been home since the colors came back from Germany for good in 2006.

It sits right on the vest you wear to a Society of the 1st Infantry Division reunion, or in a shadow box with a CIB and a photo from your tour. For a son or grandson heading to Fort Riley, it is the patch his grandfather wore and the one he will wear. Duty first.