Aviation Ordnanceman AO Rating Hat Patch

The two small flags under the winged bomb are Alfa and Oscar, the rating spelled out in flag hoist for anyone who ever stood near a signal bridge. Alfa is the white and blue swallowtail, and Oscar is the red and yellow square split on the diagonal. Above them sits the winged bomb, the mark of the Aviation Ordnanceman. AOs are the sailors who handle what naval aviation carries into a fight: guns, bombs, torpedoes, rockets and missiles. When a strike goes out, every round and every weapon on those jets went through their hands first.

AO "A" school is held at NAS Pensacola under the Naval Air Technical Training Center, about five weeks of aviation basics and electronic troubleshooting before a sailor reports to the fleet. At the organizational level, AOs in squadrons ashore and afloat load and unload aircraft, and ship's company AOs work the magazines below decks and keep track of weapons on the flight deck, whether loaded on aircraft or staged behind the island. At the intermediate level they test and repair bomb racks and missile launchers and issue aircraft guns to the squadrons. Depot level work covers complete overhauls beyond what the ship or station can do. On a carrier flight deck, the red jerseys are the people who move, load and unload ordnance, and they also turn out with the crash and salvage team.

The patch measures 4.5 inches wide by 3.25 inches tall, with a navy blue merrowed edge and an iron-on backing. A gold band arches across the top reading UNITED STATES NAVY, and a matching gold band across the bottom reads AVIATION ORDNANCEMAN, both in navy blue letters. In the blue center panel a big white A and O stand on either side of the green winged bomb, its flame rising from the top. The two signal flags sit just below it, small enough that only a sailor would think to look. It is the classic rating patch layout, cut for a ball cap and just as at home on a jacket.

Ordies take their trade seriously, and they have the vocabulary to prove it. The community even keeps an informal acronym, IYAOYAS, which says ordnance is the point of the whole operation, and the last word in it stays off a family website. The rating even has its own Association of Aviation Ordnancemen. The work is heavy, exacting and done on a moving deck, often at night, with no room for a mistake. Every sortie that ever dropped a bomb or fired a missile depended on an AO getting it right.

It fits a ball cap, a ship's jacket or the vest worn to a squadron reunion, and it sits well in a shadow box with a sailor's crow, ribbons and a cruise book. It also makes a good gift for a young AO heading out of Pensacola, or a retired chief who spent his career in the magazines and on the flight deck. The weapon, the letters and the flags, and an ordie will read all three.