Navy Information Systems Technician IT Rating Patch

The two small flags at the bottom of this patch are India and Tango from the international signal code, and hoisted together they spell IT. It is the kind of detail a signalman would catch from across a pier. Information Systems Technician is the Navy rating that runs a ship's networks, radio circuits and computer systems. The rating took its present name in November 1999. Before that, its work belonged to the radiomen and the data processing technicians.

The Radioman (RM) and Data Processing Technician (DP) ratings merged in November 1998, and a year later the combined rating was re-designated Information Systems Technician. In October 2005 the Cryptologic Technician Communications (CTO) rating merged into IT as well. ITs came under the Information Dominance Corps in February 2010, and in December 2010 the Navy created Information Systems Technician Submarines (ITS) for the boats. IT candidates go through A school at Corry Station in Pensacola, Florida. The job covers local and wide area networks, servers and workstations, telecommunications systems and data links, and the communications and cryptographic gear that keeps ships, aircraft, shore stations and Fleet Marine Force units talking.

The patch measures 4.5 inches wide by 3.25 inches tall, a broad shape with arched gold panels along the top and bottom and a blue merrowed edge. The top panel reads UNITED STATES NAVY and the bottom panel reads INFORMATION SYSTEMS TECHNICIAN, both in navy blue letters on gold. The navy blue center carries a large white I on the left and a white T on the right, with a spray of white lightning bolts between them pointing toward the I. Below the bolts sit the India flag, yellow with a dark center dot, and the Tango flag in red, white and blue vertical stripes. It has an iron-on backing and can also be sewn on.

IT is a rating people outside the Navy rarely notice until the network goes down. On a carrier or a destroyer the ITs keep the classified and unclassified networks up, the satellite and HF radio circuits on the air and the message traffic moving, often through the night before a big operation. Many came up as radiomen and worked traffic in the radio shack before the computers took over. Others started as data processing technicians running mainframes ashore. Every one of them knows the weight of a circuit that has to stay up.

It fits a shadow box with your crow, your A school certificate and a ship's patch, or the vest you wear to a ship's reunion. It also makes a good gift for an IT who just made chief or a retired radioman who watched his rating change names. Two flags, one rating.