CVN-75 USS Harry S Truman Patch

The three signal flags under the name spell H, S and T, and the ring of gold stars around the oval is for Truman as the 33rd president. USS Harry S. Truman, CVN-75, carries the name of the president from Independence, Missouri. Sailors call the ship HST, and her motto is the line Truman kept in front of him as president: The Buck Stops Here. The ship's battle flag carries crossed cannons on scarlet with Give 'em hell, after Truman's 1948 campaign. Every one of those details points back to the man.

Truman was built by Newport News Shipbuilding and laid down on 29 November 1993 as USS United States, a name changed in February 1995. She was launched on 7 September 1996 and commissioned at Naval Station Norfolk on 25 July 1998, with Captain Thomas Otterbein in command, and Norfolk has been her homeport since. Her first deployment began on 28 November 2000 with Carrier Air Wing 3 in support of Operation Southern Watch. In the opening phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, her aircraft flew nearly 1,300 combat sorties from the Mediterranean. With Carrier Air Wing 7 embarked, she began strikes against the Islamic State on 29 December 2015 in Operation Inherent Resolve.

This is a 3.5 by 5 inch horizontal oval with a black merrowed edge. A band of blue carries a ring of small gold stars, and inside it two eagles in brown and gold flank USS HARRY S., one holding an olive branch. TRUMAN runs across the center in large gold italic letters with a long sweep under it, and CVN 75 sits below. Gold sprigs frame a small panel with the H, S and T signal flags, and THE BUCK STOPS HERE is stitched in black on the gold scroll at the bottom. The blue and gold are Navy colors, and the back is iron-on.

Truman is a Nimitz-class carrier, and a Norfolk ship through and through. Her crews have deployed from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, from Southern Watch to the strikes on the Islamic State. For a ship crew of several thousand plus an embarked air wing, the motto is a working rule as much as a slogan: the sailor on watch owns it. Sailors who served aboard, and the air wing squadrons who flew from her deck, know exactly what it means to see those three flags. This patch puts them on one oval.

It fits a shadow box with a cruise book and a set of ribbons, or the jacket worn to a Truman reunion or a homecoming on the Norfolk waterfront. It is also a good gift for a son or daughter whose parent made a cruise on HST. Press it on, or stitch it down for good. Three flags, a ring of gold stars, and the buck stops here.