Parachute Rigger Badge Embroidered Patch

The Parachute Rigger Badge was drawn in 1948 at Camp Schimmelpfennig in Sendai, Japan, by Sergeant First Class Ewing of the 11th Parachute Maintenance Company, 11th Airborne Division, from a design by Major Thomas R. Cross. Riggers wore it for nearly four decades before the Army approved it on 9 June 1986. In the meantime commanders authorized locally made versions for the utility uniform, and the badge saw its first operational use during Exercise Swarmer in 1950. Every rigger is Airborne qualified first, a graduate of the Basic Airborne Course at Fort Benning, Georgia. The badge marks the soldiers who pack the parachutes the rest of the Airborne jumps.

The rigger courses are run by the U.S. Army Quartermaster Center and School at Fort Lee, Virginia. The first rigger MOS was 43E; enlisted riggers today hold MOS 92R, and rigger warrant officers hold 921A. Officers earn the badge through the Aerial Delivery Management Officer Course. A 1983 request for formal adoption by James S. Emery, a former Rigger School commander, was turned down until General Richard H. Thompson asked the Chief of Staff to reconsider, which led to the 1986 approval. In 1999 the Army authorized the badge for soldiers who had worked as riggers before May 1951 without attending a course at the Quartermaster school. The Air Force awards it too, and since 2009 airmen have been allowed to wear it on all uniform combinations.

The patch is 4.5 inches wide by 1.75 inches tall, cut to the outline of the badge with no border ring around it. A full canopy sits in the center with its suspension lines drawn down to a point below, and wings sweep out to either side. RIGGER is stitched in black block letters on a curved scroll across the canopy, the detail that sets this badge apart from basic jump wings at a glance. It is worked in silver gray, white and black only. It has an iron-on backing and can be sewn on as well.

A rigger's work goes out the door with a jumper he may never meet, and that jumper trusts the pack without a second look. The job runs from personnel parachutes to cargo platforms and aerial delivery, everything that puts troops and supplies on the ground from the air. It is exacting, repetitive work, and the standard on the thousandth pack is the same as on the first. In 1977 the Rigger School hired its first women instructors, Deborah Petrie, Joann Jackson and Stacy Kates. Generations of riggers have kept the Airborne flying, and most of them never made much noise about it.

It sits well in a shadow box with jump wings and a unit patch, or on a vest at an Airborne reunion. It is also a good gift for a rigger in the family who packed for others for years. Silver wings, a full canopy and one word across it.