Department of Veterans Affairs Small VA Patch

The five gold stars above the eagle on this patch stand for the five branches of military service, and the gold cord tying the crossed flags in its talons honors those who died defending liberty. The eagle itself stands for the vigilance of the nation's veterans, and the crossed flags stand for the country's history. This is the small Department of Veterans Affairs patch, 3 inches across, for the department that has carried the nation's promise to its veterans since 1930. Its work runs through three administrations: the Veterans Health Administration, the Veterans Benefits Administration and the National Cemetery Administration. Each one is headed by an under secretary.

The department grew out of the Veterans' Bureau, created when President Warren G. Harding signed the Sweet Act in August 1921, after the First World War. On July 21, 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed Executive Order 5398, merging three agencies into the Veterans Administration, with Frank T. Hines as its first administrator. On June 22, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, the GI Bill, and the VA carried it out for the men coming home from the Second World War. President Ronald Reagan signed the Department of Veterans Affairs Act on October 25, 1988, and the VA became a Cabinet department on March 15, 1989. Its mission has long drawn on Lincoln's second inaugural address, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.

The patch is round, with a gold rope border around a navy blue ring. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS arcs across the top in gold letters, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA runs along the bottom, and a gold dot sits at each side between the two. Inside, on a light blue field, a bald eagle with brown wings spread wide grips the poles of two crossed American flags, their stripes rippling red and white beneath it. The five gold stars form a ring in the sky above its wings. It is a small patch with a lot of meaning stitched into 3 inches.

For most veterans the VA is not an abstraction. It is the clinic down the road, the claim number on a letter, the GI Bill that paid for school or a first house, and the national cemetery where a father or a shipmate is buried with honors. Veterans of the World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan have all passed through its doors. The people who work there, many of them veterans themselves, carry the same promise from the other side of the desk. This patch belongs to all of them.

Put it on a jacket or vest, on the bag you carry to appointments, or in a shadow box with discharge papers and service medals. It also makes a good gift for a VA nurse, a volunteer driver or a retiring employee who spent a career serving veterans. The backing is iron-on, and it can be sewn on for a permanent hold. Small patch, long promise.