E4 Mafia Order of the Shamurai Embroidered Morale Patch

Every Army Specialist learns sooner or later that the rank on his chest is called the sham shield, and this patch gives that shield a samurai order to go with it. E4 MAFIA rides across a red banner, and ORDER OF THE SHAMURAI sits under it in gold. Sham, samurai, Shamurai. The wordplay is the whole point. It is a morale patch for the Specialist who turned avoiding work into a discipline, and for the sergeant who watched him do it.

In Army slang, Specialists are the E-4 Mafia. They share pay grade E-4 with corporals, but a corporal wears stripes and is a noncommissioned officer, while a Specialist wears the shield and is not. That gap is the sweet spot: enough time in service to know how everything works, not enough rank to be stuck running it. Shamming is the craft that comes with it, from the well-timed sick call appointment to the task handed down to a private to the long walk across the motor pool with a clipboard. Every company has a few masters of it, and everybody knows their names.

The patch is a 3.25 by 4 inch pentagon of black twill with a cut edge and an iron-on backing, and it can also be sewn on. A bearded skull in a blue samurai kabuto stares out from the center, with a gold crescent crest rising over the helmet and gold rays fanning out behind it. Blue armor plates sit on his shoulders. Below him, E4 MAFIA in gold block letters on a red banner, and ORDER OF THE SHAMURAI in gold underneath. The beard says time in service, and the rays say he has reached enlightenment, mostly on the subject of where not to be.

The joke works because there is truth under it. Specialists carry a lot of the Army's daily work, and they learn every system, every shortcut and every regulation along the way. A good one knows how to find a missing part, a free vehicle or a working printer when nobody else can. Plenty of solid NCOs came out of the E-4 Mafia, and most of them still tell the stories. The Order just gives it a name and a samurai helmet.

Put it on a range bag, a jacket or a backpack, or in a shadow box next to your old Specialist rank. It makes a good gift for a soldier who just pinned on E-4, or for the retired first sergeant who remembers exactly what his Specialists used to get away with. The Order is always taking members.