Air Assault Military Tab

Every Air Assault class at Fort Campbell ends the same way, with a 12-mile foot march in full gear that has to be finished in under three hours. Before that comes Day Zero, an obstacle course and a two-mile run that sends a share of every class home before the course starts. The U.S. Army Air Assault School has been run by the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, since 1974. The course runs ten and a half days. This tab puts the two words that define all of it in gold on black.

The idea started with the 11th Air Assault Division (Test), which worked out helicopter-borne tactics from 1963 to 1965 and wore an early badge that took three rappels from 60 feet and three from 120 feet to earn. In 1965 the 11th was folded into the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), which took UH-1 Hueys to Vietnam. The 101st reorganized as airmobile in Vietnam in 1968, and in 1971 Maj. Jack R. Rickman of the 101st designed the badge that is still worn. It was authorized for local wear on 1 April 1974, took the Air Assault name on 4 October 1974, and was approved for wear across the Army on 18 January 1978. The school itself is built on three phases: combat assault, sling load and rappelling.

This is an arched shoulder tab, 2.5 inches wide and 1 inch tall. Gold block letters spell "AIR ASSAULT" across a black twill field, with a gold border stitched all the way around. The edge is cut flat to the border rather than rolled. Black and gold is the same color pairing soldiers know from the Army's arc tabs, and nothing else is on it, no numbers and no imagery. It is a cloth tab with the words, not the qualification badge itself.

Air Assault is a word with weight in the Army because of what it costs to get there and who has carried it. Vietnam veterans assigned or attached to the 101st or the 1st Cavalry Division between 1965 and 1972 in combat arms or combat support can receive an honorary Air Assault badge, which says a lot about how the Army sees that generation. Since then, Screaming Eagles and graduates from units across the Army have taken the skills from the towers and sling-load pads at Fort Campbell into every theater the Army has gone. The men and women who finished that last road march know exactly what the two words mean.

It sits well on a ruck, a range bag or a jacket, and it fills out a shadow box with a 101st or 1st Cavalry patch and a set of graduation photos. It is also a good gift for a son or daughter just back from the course. Measures 2.5 x 1 inches with a cut edge and iron-on backing, and it can also be sewn on.