Operation Iraqi Freedom Patch - When I Die I'll Go To Heaven

The little Iraqi flag stitched on the map carries three green stars, the design Iraq flew from 1963 until its parliament voted the stars off in January 2008. That was the flag over Iraq when the war began in March 2003, and the one troops saw on buildings and checkpoints through the hardest years that followed. Around the map, the top banner says When I die, I'll go to heaven, and the bottom banner finishes the thought: I already spent my time in hell. It is dark humor, and it was earned the hard way. This is the desert tan Operation Iraqi Freedom version of that saying, with the whole country laid out at the center.

The operation began on the night of March 19, 2003, and coalition forces took Baghdad on April 9, when the statue in Firdos Square came down. Saddam Hussein was pulled from a spider hole near Tikrit on December 13, 2003. In November 2004 American and Iraqi forces cleared Fallujah in some of the hardest fighting of the war. The surge announced on January 10, 2007, pushed U.S. troop levels past 150,000 before it ended on July 16, 2008. The last American combat brigade left in August 2010, Operation Iraqi Freedom became Operation New Dawn on September 1, 2010, and the last U.S. troops crossed into Kuwait on December 18, 2011.

The patch is 4.25 inches wide and 4.5 inches tall, cut edge, shaped as a circle with a curved banner above and below. The top banner reads WHEN I DIE, I'LL GO TO HEAVEN!!! and the bottom reads I ALREADY SPENT MY TIME IN HELL, in black on tan. Inside, OPERATION and IRAQI FREEDOM ring a map of Iraq stitched with Mosul, Tikrit, Baghdad, Najaf, Nasiriyah and Basrah, with Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait named around the borders. The three-star Iraqi flag sits on the western desert and the flag of Kuwait at the southern edge. Behind it all, a subdued American flag in tan and brown runs across the background, stars on the left and stripes on the right.

Every name on that map meant something to somebody. Mosul, Tikrit and Baghdad were addresses for whole brigades, and the road south to Basrah and Kuwait was the road home. By March 2008 more than 4,000 Americans had been killed in Iraq, and every unit that served there carried names of its own. The saying on this patch was never about giving up. It was the kind of joke you make with the people next to you so you can go back out the gate tomorrow.

Put it in a shadow box with your campaign medal, your unit patch and a photo from the FOB, or on the jacket you wear to the unit reunion. It also makes a good gift for a brother, son or daughter who did a tour in Iraq and still laughs at that line. The backing is iron-on, and it can be sewn on for a permanent hold. The map shows where they were.