USS Constellation CV-64 Connie Aircraft Carrier Patch

The two dates on this patch are 164 years apart: 1797, when the frigate Constellation was launched at Baltimore, and 1961, when the aircraft carrier that carried her name was commissioned. The first Constellation was one of the Navy's original six frigates, and in 1799 she captured the French frigate L'Insurgente off Nevis under Capt. Thomas Truxtun. CV-64 took the name into the jet age as the second ship of the Kitty Hawk class, built at the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn. Sailors called her Connie, and in 1981 President Reagan named her America's Flagship. She served more than 41 years, nearly all of them out of San Diego.

On August 5, 1964, Connie's aircraft flew the Operation Pierce Arrow strikes, and Lt. (jg) Everett Alvarez Jr. was shot down in his A-4 Skyhawk that day, becoming the first Navy prisoner of war in Vietnam. She made multiple Vietnam deployments with F-4 Phantom IIs, A-4 Skyhawks, A-1 Skyraiders and A-7 Corsair IIs on deck. On May 10, 1972, Lt. Randall Cunningham and Lt. (jg) William Driscoll of VF-96, flying an F-4J from her deck, became the first American aces of the Vietnam War. Later air wings brought F-14 Tomcats, F/A-18 Hornets, S-3 Vikings and EA-6B Prowlers aboard, and she came out of her service life extension at Philadelphia in 1993. Her last deployment, with Carrier Air Wing 2, took her into Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and she was decommissioned at North Island that August.

The patch is a 4.5-inch circle with a merrowed edge and a wide gold band lettered USS CONSTELLATION across the top and CV-64 at the bottom in blue. Inside, a light blue sky holds a ring of white stars, the old frigate under full sail with 1797 beneath her, and the carrier below with 1961. A swept-wing jet and two red missiles streak between the two ships, carrying the name from sail to jet. The stars are the name itself: the frigate was named for the constellation of stars in the young nation's emblem.

Connie's story started hard. On December 19, 1960, a fire in her hangar bay at the Brooklyn yard killed 50 shipyard workers and delayed her commissioning. She went on to serve 41 years, nine months and 11 days, from the Tonkin Gulf in 1964 to the Persian Gulf in 2003. Generations of San Diego sailors knew her simply as Connie. After years in reserve at Bremerton, she left under tow in August 2014 and reached Brownsville, Texas, in early 2015 to be dismantled.

Frame it with your cruise book and squadron patches, or put it on the vest you wear to Connie reunions. It also makes a good gift for a father or grandfather who flew from her or worked her flight deck. The patch has an iron-on backing and can be sewn on as well. Connie's whole lineage fits in four and a half inches.