64th Armor Regiment We Pierce Patch

The black elephant with white tusks was designed by a soldier of the 758th Tank Battalion, the first tank battalion in the Army to accept enlisted Black men. He drew it to show pride in heritage and the battalion's job of mobile armored warfare. The motto under it is two words, We Pierce. That elephant has gone from Italy to Korea to Baghdad. It is the mark of the 64th Armor Regiment.

The lineage starts with the 78th Tank Battalion, activated 13 January 1941 at Fort Knox and redesignated the 758th Tank Battalion (Light) that May. The 758th fought in Italy with the 92nd Infantry Division and was inactivated at Viareggio in September 1945. In 1949 it came back as the 64th Heavy Tank Battalion, joined the 3rd Infantry Division in 1950 and fought in Korea from November 1950 to the 1953 cease-fire, earning eight campaigns. In April 2003, Task Force 1-64 Armor led the 3rd Infantry Division into central Baghdad on the Thunder Runs, with the 4th Battalion, the Tuskers, right behind. Today the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor is the armored fist of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

The patch is a shield, 3 inches wide and 3.5 inches tall, with a cut edge and a gray border. A black elephant head fills the white field, trunk curled high, two white tusks sweeping down and forward. The lines are picked out in gray, the same gray as the lettering. Across the bottom a black scroll reads WE PIERCE. It has an iron-on backing and can be sewn on too.

Tankers of the 64th have carried a hard reputation since the 758th. The regiment's battalions crossed the Iraqi border in 2003 and rolled into the middle of a capital city in daylight, which is about as clean a definition of We Pierce as anyone could write. Korea vets of the 64th Heavy Tank Battalion remember a war of hills, cold and short-range gunnery. The elephant ties all of them together.

Put it on a jacket or vest for a 3rd Infantry Division reunion, or in a shadow box with an M1 Abrams crew photo and your combat patch. It also makes a good gift for a tanker who served with the Desert Rogues or the Tuskers. Steel on target.