8511 Drill Instructor MOS Patch

The number 8511 dates a drill instructor: it was the Marine Corps code for a DI before the Corps renumbered the drill instructor designator as 0911. That makes this the patch for the drill instructors who pushed recruit platoons before the change. Many of them have been off the drill field for decades. Every one of them went through Drill Instructor School and came out wearing the campaign cover. The four digits on this patch tell a Marine exactly which era of the drill field you mean.

Drill instructor duty is a special duty assignment, a B-billet, and not a field a Marine enlists into. Marines earned the designator at Drill Instructor School and then went to a recruit training battalion at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, or Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, California. Recruit training today runs 13 weeks. The Drill Instructor Ribbon was created in July 1997 and made retroactive to 6 October 1952.

This is a 4.5 by 3.25 inch patch in the classic MOS shape, a wide rectangle with arched top and bottom edges, finished with a red merrowed edge. MARINE CORPS runs across the black band at the top and DRILL INSTRUCTOR across the black band at the bottom, both in white block letters. The center panel is scarlet, outlined in white, with a large 85 on the left and 11 on the right. Between the numbers sits the eagle, globe and anchor in gold and silver, with SEMPER FIDELIS in white serif lettering beneath it. Scarlet and gold are the Marine Corps colors, and the back is iron-on.

Every Marine remembers his drill instructors, usually by name, and usually for life. For most recruits a DI was the first face they met at the depot, at the yellow footprints or in the squad bay that first night. The job meant long days and short nights at the depot for the length of the tour, and a platoon of civilians turned into Marines at the end of each training cycle. A DI tour was a demanding assignment and a mark of trust from the Corps. The 8511 code belongs to the men and women who held that duty before the change to 0911.

It fits a shadow box with a Drill Instructor Ribbon, a campaign cover and a graduation photo of a platoon, or the vest worn to a depot reunion. It is also a good gift for a father or grandfather who still knows his DI number by heart, or for a recruit's family who wants to honor the Marine who trained him. Press it on, or stitch it down for a permanent hold. The drill field never really leaves a DI, and this patch says where he stood.