65th Infantry Regiment Patch

The white cross on this black shield is the cross of St. John, and it is there for San Juan, Puerto Rico, the city where the 65th Infantry was organized. The regiment began as the Porto Rico Battalion of Volunteer Infantry, activated on 20 May 1899, and was taken into the Regular Army in 1908. In 1920 it was redesignated the 65th Infantry. On the voyage to Korea in 1950 its soldiers took the name Borinqueneers, from Borinquen, the Taino name for their island. HONOR ET FIDELITAS, honor and fidelity, is the motto on the scroll beneath the shield.

On 21 March 1915 Lieutenant Teofilo Marxuach ordered fire from El Morro on the German ship Odenwald in San Juan Bay, considered the first shot fired by US regular forces against a Central Powers ship in World War I. From 1917 to 1919 the regiment guarded the Panama Canal Zone. In World War II it shipped to North Africa in April 1944, sent its 3rd Battalion to Naples, landed in France that September and first saw combat at Peira Cava in the Maritime Alps on 13 December 1944. In Korea it landed at Pusan on 23 September 1950, was the first regiment across the Han River in Operation Killer, and fought at Outpost Kelly and on Hill 391, Jackson Heights, in 1952. Master Sergeant Juan E. Negron's stand at Kalma-Eri on 28 April 1951 was upgraded to the Medal of Honor in 2014. The 65th is credited with the last battalion-sized bayonet charge in US Army history.

The patch is cut to the shape of the regiment's shield, 3.5 inches wide by 3.5 inches tall, with a gold border stitched around the outline and a cut edge that follows it. A white cross with eight points, outlined in gold, fills the black field from edge to edge. A gold scroll curls under the base of the shield with HONOR ET FIDELITAS lettered in black. Black, white and gold are the only colors, and the cross reads clearly from across a room. The back is iron-on, and a few stitches around the border will keep it there for good.

The Borinqueneers were made up primarily of Hispanic soldiers, and the 65th was the last segregated unit in the US military. Korea cost the regiment dearly; at Outpost Kelly, 50 of its 73 men listed missing were lost on a single day, 18 September 1952. On 10 June 2014 the President signed Public Law 113-120 awarding the regiment the Congressional Gold Medal, and on 13 April 2016 it was presented in Emancipation Hall at the Capitol. The 65th was inactivated in 1956 and continued in the Puerto Rico Army National Guard. Its 1st Battalion, assigned to the 92nd Infantry Brigade, has served in Iraq, at Guantanamo Bay and in Djibouti.

Press it onto a jacket, or frame it beside a Korean War photo and the medals of an abuelo who served with the regiment. It is a good gift for a Borinqueneer family, or for a Guardsman of the 1st Battalion today. A black shield and a white cross, with more than a century of service behind them.