Naval Training Center Orlando Florida Embroidered Patch

On 1 April 1974 the women's and men's recruit commands at Orlando were merged, and NTC Orlando became the only command in the Navy where men and women both went through boot camp. Women had started recruit training here in 1972. From the first graduation on 12 December 1968 to the last Pass in Review on 2 December 1994, about 462,000 men and 188,000 women graduated on these grinders. If you came into the Navy through Orlando, your first haircut, your first seabag and your first company commander all happened here. This patch is from that place.

The ground had been an Army Air Forces field in World War II, Orlando Air Base, and the Air Force signed it over to the Navy on 30 June 1968. Naval Training Center Orlando was established the next day, and the Recruit Training Command under Capt. B. W. Brender, its first commanding officer, graduated its first 400 recruits that December. Alongside RTC the base ran Service School Command, a naval hospital and the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command, where officers and enlisted learned the reactor plant work for the fleet's nuclear submarines and carriers. The 1993 BRAC round set the closure. Recruit training and the hospital closed in March 1995, Service School Command in November 1996 and nuke school in December 1998, and all operations ended on 30 April 1999.

The patch is a 4 inch circle with a gold merrowed edge around a deep navy blue ring. NAVAL TRAINING CENTER arches across the top in gold block letters, ORLANDO, FLORIDA runs along the bottom, and a gold star between two short dashes sits on each side. Inside is a white circle holding a navy diamond, and in the diamond a gold fouled anchor, the anchor wrapped in its own line. Every sailor knows that device from the chief's collar, and at a training command the chief was most of your world. It measures 4 inches wide by 4 inches tall, with a merrowed edge and iron-on backing.

Orlando boot camp came with Florida attached: heat, humidity that showed up before you did, and afternoon thunderstorms rolling over the grinder on schedule, none of which a company commander accepted as an excuse. Recruits left here for A school and the fleet in every rating the Navy had. For a big share of the women who served in that era, this is where the whole career began. The grinders came up in 2000, and the ground is the Baldwin Park neighborhood now. Blue Jacket Park there carries a ten-panel history of the training center, so the place is still marked.

It belongs in a shadow box next to the boot camp company photo and the first set of crows, or on a vest at a reunion. It is also a fitting gift for a parent or grandparent who shipped out of Orlando and still tells the story. For a base that no longer exists, the patch is most of what is left to hold.