United States Navy Radioman RM Rating Embroidered Patch

The two small signal flags under the lightning bolts spell the rating: a red flag with a yellow cross is Romeo, and a blue flag with a white diagonal cross is Mike. R and M, in the language every signalman and radioman learned before he ever touched a key. The rating was created in 1921, when radio was still new enough that the Navy needed men who did nothing else. For close to eighty years the radio shack belonged to the RMs. They took down the fleet broadcast, ran the circuits, guarded the crypto and kept the message traffic moving, watch after watch. When a ship needed to talk to anyone beyond the horizon, it went through radio.

A ship's radio shack had its own crew of jobs: broadcast operator, MAINCOMM and FACCON supervisors, the crypto operator, the teletype repairman, the inrouter and outrouter. Radiomen worked the spectrum from ELF to EHF, maintained the transmitters, receivers and antennas, and handled the destruction of classified material when the time came. In 1996 the submarine force merged its radiomen with the electronics technicians and electronic warfare specialists. In 1998 the Navy merged Radioman with Data Processing Technician, and in 1999 the combined rating became Information Systems Technician. Every IT in the fleet today traces the job back to the RMs.

The patch is 4.5 inches wide and 3.25 inches tall, with a blue merrowed edge around a rounded rating shape. UNITED STATES NAVY arcs across a gold upper band, and RADIOMAN runs along the gold lower band. In the blue center, a big white R and M stand on either side of a spray of white lightning bolts, the rating's mark for as long as there were radiomen. Below the bolts sit the Romeo and Mike flags, side by side. It has an iron-on backing and can be sewn on for good.

Radio watch did not get much ceremony. It was headphones, a log, a stack of traffic and the knowledge that a missed message could matter more than anything else on the ship that day. Radiomen took pride in copy speed and in clean traffic, and an RM who could read a weak signal through the static was known for it. The rating's name is gone from the rolls, but men who struck for RM still call themselves radiomen. Sparks is a nickname that never left them.

Mount it in a shadow box with your crow and your ship's patch, or sew it on the vest you wear to a ship's reunion. It also makes a good gift for a son or daughter who wants to know what their father did at sea. Two letters, two flags and a handful of lightning bolts.