Air Force Global Strike Command Patch

The three red lightning flashes striking the globe on this patch are a link back to Strategic Air Command, and Air Force Global Strike Command holds SAC's lineage, history and honors. AFGSC was activated at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, on 7 August 2009. It put the Air Force's long-range bombers and its intercontinental ballistic missiles under one major command. SAC itself had been inactivated on 1 June 1992. Its motto is Always Ready, and more than 33,700 Airmen and civilians serve in it.

The command runs two numbered air forces. Eighth Air Force at Barksdale has the bombers: the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale and the 5th at Minot AFB, North Dakota, with the B-52 Stratofortress, the 7th at Dyess AFB, Texas, and the 28th at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, with the B-1B Lancer, and the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman AFB, Missouri, with the B-2 Spirit. Twentieth Air Force at F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming, has the missiles: the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren, the 91st at Minot and the 341st at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, with 400 Minuteman III ICBMs on alert. The B-1B units came into the command on 1 October 2015. The UH-1N Hueys of the 582nd Helicopter Group are being replaced by the MH-139A Grey Wolf, and the B-21 Raider and LGM-35A Sentinel are on the way.

This is a 3 by 3 inch shield on a blue field with a gold cut edge and a white scroll reading AIR FORCE GLOBAL STRIKE COMMAND in blue. Golden wings spread above a white star with a red disc at its center. Under them sits a globe drawn in green lines, with three red lightning flashes running down across it. The blue is the sky, the golden wings are air dominance and the lineage of the Army Air Corps, and the globe is global reach. The star stands for readiness and deterrence, the red disc honors Airmen who have made sacrifices, and the back is iron-on.

Most of what this command does is never seen. Missile wing work happens in launch control centers and on long drives across the missile fields of Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota, in every season. The bomber wings keep crews and jets ready to launch on short notice. The mission works only as long as no one ever has to carry it out, and the people in AFGSC carry that every day. Airmen who served under SAC saw its lineage handed on in 2009.

Iron it onto a flight jacket or a range bag, or frame it with patches from a bomb wing or a missile wing. It is a good gift for a missileer, a crew chief, or a son headed to Barksdale, Minot or Whiteman. Press it on, or sew it for a jacket that goes through the wash. Always Ready.