AD-38 USS Puget Sound Patch

USS Puget Sound AD-38 was built at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, then spent her entire career in the Atlantic Fleet. She was a Samuel Gompers-class destroyer tender, laid down on 15 February 1965, launched on 16 September 1966 and commissioned on 27 April 1968. A tender is a repair yard that steams, and she could fix any surface ship that did not need dry-dock work on its hull. The thunderbird totem pole on this patch is pure Pacific Northwest, a long way from Newport and the Bay of Gaeta. She served almost 29 years before she was decommissioned on 27 January 1996.

She reached her first homeport, Newport, Rhode Island, on 16 October 1968 and served as flagship for Commander, Cruiser-Destroyer Force, Atlantic. Her shops covered nearly every trade a fleet needs: a machine shop, a foundry, an electrical and motor rewind shop, nuclear systems repair and a dive shop. In 1979 her 5-inch/38 gun and all other offensive armament came off so women could serve in her crew, since the law of the day kept women off combatant ships. Homeported in Gaeta, Italy, she served as flagship for the admiral commanding the Sixth Fleet. Norfolk, Virginia, was also her homeport.

The patch is a 4.5 by 4.5 inch circle in pale blue with a black merrowed edge and an iron-on backing. USS PUGET SOUND arches across the top in black, with her motto, STANDARD FOR EXCELLENCE, around the bottom. A totem pole rises through the center, topped by a thunderbird with red and white wings spread over green mountains. On the left is a white ship emblem, and on the right a dark trident set over the orbits of an atom, with a yellow star above each. The atom fits a tender that carried a nuclear systems repair shop.

Tender sailors were the people a destroyer crew went to when something broke that the ship could not fix on her own. Machinists, hull technicians, electricians, divers and foundrymen turned a casualty report into a working part. Puget Sound's crews did that work out of Newport, Gaeta and Norfolk for almost three decades. She was sold in April 2008 to ESCO Marine in Brownsville, Texas, for recycling, and the work was finished in February 2009. For the men and women who served in her, the motto on this patch was the job description.

It fits a shadow box beside a Sixth Fleet patch and a Mediterranean cruise book, or on the jacket worn to a ship's reunion. It also makes a good gift for anyone who did a tour in Gaeta and still talks about it. Sew it on for the long haul, or press it on with the iron-on backing. One tender, three homeports, one standard.