Seabee Construction Equipment Operator Patch Rating

The two small flags under the bulldozer on this patch are Echo and Oscar, the signal flags for E and O, so the patch spells out the Equipment Operator rate twice. That is a Navy way of putting it, with the big white letters for everyone and the flags for the people who know the hoist. Equipment Operators are the Seabees who run the heavy iron: dozers, cranes, graders, loaders and asphalt plants. If a Seabee battalion builds a road, a runway or a pier, an EO was in the seat first. This patch is for the operators.

The Seabees date their birthday to 5 March 1942, when the Navy formed its first Naval Construction Battalions to build bases across the Pacific. In World War II the men running that equipment were rated as Machinist's Mate Construction Battalion Equipment Operator, along with carpenter's mates, boatswain's mates and gunner's mates working the same jobs. The Equipment Operator rating itself took effect in 1948. EOs handle earth-moving, roadbuilding, quarrying, paving, and asphalt and concrete plant operations, along with crane assembly, pile-driving, drilling and blasting. They also run equipment pools, keep the records and take on combat and disaster recovery work. At master chief, EOs join the other construction rates as Master Chief Seabees, CBCM.

This is a 4.5 by 3.25 inch rating patch in the familiar shape, with an arched top band and a navy-blue merrowed edge. A gold band across the top reads UNITED STATES NAVY and a gold band across the bottom reads EQUIPMENT OPERATOR, both in navy letters. In the navy-blue center, a light-blue crawler dozer sits between a large white E and O. Under the dozer are the Echo flag, blue over red, and the Oscar flag, red and yellow split on the diagonal. The back is iron-on.

Seabees describe themselves in four words, We build, we fight, and the EO lives on both halves of that. Equipment operators have cut airfields out of coral, cleared roads under fire and moved earth for disaster relief from the Pacific to the Gulf Coast. The rate carries a Can Do attitude that every Seabee battalion claims, and the operators back it up with a blade. An EO's work is still standing long after the battalion has gone home. Plenty of runways, roads and piers around the world started with one.

It fits a shadow box with a Seabee bee and a photo from a battalion deployment, or the sleeve of a work jacket or vest worn to a Seabee reunion. It is also a good gift for a son or daughter who wants to know what a parent did in the Seabees. Echo, Oscar and a dozer, all on one patch.