26th Infantry Regiment Patch Blue Spaders

The Germans in World War I looked at the blue arrowhead on this regiment's shield, saw a spade, and called its soldiers the Blauerspadern. The 26th Infantry kept the name, and it has been the Blue Spaders ever since. The arrowhead itself is a Mohawk arrowhead, chosen by Colonel Hamilton A. Smith as the regimental mark in the First World War. It stood for courage, resourceful daring and the relentless pursuit of the enemy. The regiment was constituted on 2 February 1901 and organized that same month at Fort McPherson, Georgia.

The 26th was assigned to the 1st Expeditionary Division on 8 June 1917, the outfit that became the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One. At Soissons in July 1918 the regiment lost its commander, its executive officer, two of three battalion commanders and the regimental sergeant major, and more than 900 Blue Spaders died in six months. In World War II it went ashore in North Africa, fought at Kasserine Pass, landed at Gela on Sicily and hit Omaha Beach on D-Day. It took Aachen, the first German city to fall, held Elsenborn Ridge in the Battle of the Bulge, then guarded the Nuremberg war crimes trials. In 1965 it deployed to Vietnam with the 1st Infantry Division and fought five straight years, earning a Valorous Unit Award for Ap Gu, before later tours in Samarra, Eastern Baghdad and Kunar Province, Afghanistan.

The patch is a shield shape, 3 inches wide by 3.5 inches tall, with a scalloped top and a gold border. The field is white, and in the center sits the blue Mohawk arrowhead pointing up, outlined in gold. White and blue are the old and present infantry colors, which is why the regiment's arms are built on them. The design is clean and plain, the same arrowhead the Germans took for a spade. It has a cut edge and an iron-on backing, and it can also be sewn on.

The Blue Spaders have been part of most of the hardest fighting the Big Red One has done. Soldiers who served in the 26th know the weight of Soissons, Omaha Beach, Aachen and the Bulge, and they carry the regiment's motto, Palmam qui meruit ferat, let him bear the palm who has won it. Today the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry is the regiment's active battalion, now serving with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). Every Blue Spader from Fort McPherson to Kunar Province shares the same arrowhead.

Put it in a shadow box with your 1st Infantry Division patch and your unit coin. It also fits on a vest worn to a Society of the First Division reunion, or as a gift for a son or grandson who wants to know where his family served. A plain blue arrowhead with more than a century of history behind it.