4th Special Operations Squadron Ghostriders Patch

The 4th Special Operations Squadron's gunship story starts in November 1965, when the 4th Air Commando Squadron took the AC-47 Spooky into night combat over Vietnam. The squadron was redesignated the 4th Special Operations Squadron on 1 August 1968 and inactivated on 15 December 1969. It came back at Hurlburt Field, Florida, in May 1995 as an AC-130U Spooky II squadron. On 6 March 2019 it received its first AC-130J Ghostrider. Today it flies with the 1st Special Operations Wing under Air Force Special Operations Command, and its nickname, Ghostriders, is stitched across the bottom of this patch.

The mission is close air support, armed reconnaissance and interdiction for conventional and special operations forces on the ground. Flying from Brindisi, Italy, the squadron's AC-130U crews supported NATO operations over Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1996, helped cover the 1997 evacuation of Americans from Albania and gathered reconnaissance during the 1997 Congo crisis. In April 1999, during Operation Allied Force over Kosovo, seven crews flew a 17-sortie campaign against Yugoslav border posts, the squadron's first combat since Vietnam. One of those strikes was the first combat use of the gunship's synthetic aperture radar. In the fall of 2001 its gunships struck Taliban and al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan, and in the spring of 2003 the squadron took part in the invasion of Iraq.

The patch is 3 inches wide by 4 inches tall, with an olive green merrowed edge and an iron-on backing that can also be sewn on. Royal blue banners above and below read "4 SOS" and "GHOSTRIDERS" in olive lettering. In the black center, a hooded white ghost with a skull face, one green eye and one red, raises both arms, and each hand grips a blazing fireball that trails orange and yellow flame down its robe. The black field is the night sky gunship crews do their work in. The ghost pouring fire down from above needs no explanation for anyone who has watched a gunship work.

Gunship crews are big crews: pilots, navigators, fire control officers, sensor operators, flight engineers, loadmasters and the gunners in the back. The 4th SOS lineage carries a Presidential Unit Citation and the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm. Its gunship years run from Spooky over Vietnam to the Spooky II and now the AC-130J Ghostrider. The troops on the ground usually hear the squadron before they see it, if they see it at all.

Put this patch on a flight jacket or vest beside your AFSOC and 1st Special Operations Wing patches, or mount it in a shadow box with gunship memorabilia. It is a good gift for a former Ghostrider, a gunner or a maintainer who kept Spooky IIs flying at Hurlburt. The ghost still flies at night.