5th Special Forces Group Crest OD Green Patch

The crossed arrows behind the big black 5 go back to the 1st Special Service Force of World War II, and the 5th Special Forces Group traces its lineage straight to that combined American and Canadian outfit. The Force wore crossed arrows on the collar, and Special Forces kept them. Over the arrows rises an upright dagger, and the scroll beneath reads De Oppresso Liber, To Free the Oppressed. The 5th Group goes by the Legion, and its soldiers by Legionnaires. Since 1988 the Legion has called Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home.

The group was activated on 21 September 1961 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, with its lineage running to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, 1st Special Service Force. In Vietnam it began as an advisory force and by February 1965 was a mainstay battle force, putting its teams into Civilian Irregular Defense Group camps across the country. The group drew down from April 1970 and returned to Fort Bragg on 5 March 1971. Its colors were uncased at Fort Campbell on 16 June 1988, and from August 1990 its elements were in Southwest Asia for Desert Shield and Desert Storm. After 9/11 the 5th formed Task Force Dagger on 10 October 2001, and on 19 October ODA 595 went into the Darya Suf valley to ride alongside General Dostum's forces in northern Afghanistan.

This version is done in subdued OD green and black, made to sit on a field uniform rather than a dress coat. It measures 3 by 3 inches with a cut edge that follows the outline of the arrows, dagger and scroll. The numeral 5 is stitched in heavy black over a white field, with the dagger point showing below it. DE OPPRESSO LIBER runs in black block letters around the bottom curve. It has a sew-on backing.

Few units can point to a single photo that defines them the way the 5th can with Green Berets on horseback in the mountains of northern Afghanistan in the fall of 2001. That moment came out of decades of work in the CENTCOM region, where the group has done most of its business. In 2016 the Legion went back to its Vietnam-era beret flash, black with a white border and a diagonal yellow stripe carrying three red stripes. Men who served in the CIDG camps and men who rode with ODA 595 share the same number. That continuity is what the 5 on this patch carries.

Stitch it to a ruck, a jacket or the vest you wear to a Special Forces Association chapter meeting. It also makes a solid gift for a Legionnaire getting out or a son heading to selection. A subdued patch for a group that never needed to be loud.