5th Special Forces Group Crest De Oppresso Liber Patch

The crossed arrows on this patch were the collar device of the First Special Service Force in World War II, and the blade between them is the fighting knife that unit carried. The two were joined into the Special Forces crest, approved on July 8, 1960, and every Green Beret has worn them since. Across the scroll runs De Oppresso Liber, which the Army renders as "To Liberate the Oppressed." The big numeral 5 laid across the center narrows it to one outfit, the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), the Legion. The men who served in it call themselves Legionnaires.

The 5th Group was activated at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on September 21, 1961, and went to Vietnam as an advisory group to the South Vietnamese army. By February 1965 it had become a mainstay battle force there, and it stayed until its withdrawal was completed in March 1971, returning to Fort Bragg on March 5. The Group's colors were cased at Bragg on June 10, 1988 and uncased at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, six days later, and Campbell is home today, with a Central Command focus. In Desert Shield and Desert Storm the Group fielded 106 special operations teams, and on October 19, 2001, ODA 595 under Capt. Mark Nutsch went into Afghanistan with Task Force Dagger and rode horseback beside the Northern Alliance. In Iraq the Group deployed across the country under CJSOTF-Arabian Peninsula and helped in the capture of Saddam Hussein.

The patch is 3 inches by 3 inches and cut to the outline of the crest, so the arrowheads and fletching stand free at the edges. Two white arrows cross behind a black shield, and a white dagger stands point up through the middle. A bold black 5 sits right across the blade. DE OPPRESSO LIBER curves along the bottom scroll in white block letters, and the black and white palette keeps it subdued. It has an iron-on backing and can be sewn on if you want it permanent.

The Legion's work has always been small teams living and fighting beside partner forces, far from help and often far from any headline. Its men advised and fought in Vietnam, ran teams through the Gulf, and opened the war in Afghanistan on horseback in the fall of 2001. Iraq followed, with rotation after rotation into the CENTCOM region the Group still calls its own. In 2016 the Group went back to its Vietnam-era beret flash, black with a yellow stripe and three thin red stripes, after more than thirty years of plain black. A Legionnaire from any of those decades knows what the 5 on this patch is carrying.

Mount it in a shadow box with your Special Forces tab, jump wings and a 5th Group flash, or wear it on the vest you take to a Special Forces Association chapter meeting. It also makes a good gift for a son or grandson heading to the Q Course. Arrows, a dagger and a 5.