Naval Station Great Lakes Illinois Patch

Sailors have a name for Great Lakes, and it is stitched right across this patch: the Quarterdeck of the Navy. Aboard ship, the quarterdeck is where you salute the colors and request permission to come aboard, and Great Lakes is where the whole enlisted Navy comes aboard. The station sits on the western shore of Lake Michigan near North Chicago, in Lake County, Illinois. Theodore Roosevelt approved it in 1904, President William Howard Taft dedicated it in 1911, and a recruit named Joseph Gregg reported on July 3 of that year. Since 1996 its Recruit Training Command has been the Navy's only boot camp, so every enlisted sailor who joined since then started here.

The station grew fast every time the country needed sailors. About 125,000 recruits trained here during World War I, and Lieutenant John Philip Sousa led the Great Lakes Naval Station Band from 1917 until shortly after the Armistice. About 6,000 sailors were in training on December 7, 1941; by September 1942 the number passed 100,000, and more than a million sailors trained at Great Lakes before World War II ended. Camp Robert Smalls opened in June 1942, and in March 1944 the Golden Thirteen, the Navy's first Black commissioned and warrant officers, were commissioned after training here. The 1993 base closure round made Great Lakes the Navy's single recruit training site, and later investment of about $800 million brought new recruit barracks, called ships, and the Battle Stations 21 capstone event.

The patch is a 4-inch circle with a blue merrowed edge around a white field. A gold ship's wheel fills it, eight spokes with turned handles, and its blue rim carries NAVAL STATION across the top and GREAT LAKES, IL across the bottom. Inside the wheel is a blue map of the Great Lakes themselves, with a single small gold star set beside it. Across the hub, a gold-framed scroll reads QUARTERDECK OF THE NAVY in blue letters. Eight blue stars ring the wheel on the white field, and the whole thing is done in Navy blue and gold.

Great Lakes is the one duty station a huge share of the fleet has in common, whether the sailor went on to carriers, submarines, the Seabees or a shore billet. Sailors who left decades ago and recruits who graduated last month remember the same things: the wind off the lake, the marching, the inspections, and the day at pass-in-review when it was over. Ross Field, the parade ground in front of the Building 1 clock tower, has hosted generations of those ceremonies. The station is the largest military installation in Illinois, and its job has been the same since 1911. It takes civilians and sends sailors to the fleet.

It fits a shadow box next to a boot camp division photo, or a jacket or vest worn to a ship's reunion. It is also a fine gift for a parent whose son or daughter just graduated from RTC. The patch has an iron-on backing and can also be sewn on for a permanent hold. Every sailor who went through Great Lakes will know it on sight.