Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman Patch SARC

Before a corpsman can call himself a SARC, he has been through Basic Reconnaissance Course, Army Airborne School, Marine Combatant Diver and the Special Operations Combat Medic course, a pipeline that runs well past a year and a half. The Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman is a Navy hospital corpsman who jumps, swims and patrols with Marine reconnaissance and still carries the aid bag. He is not attached to the team for the hard parts. He is one of the team. When the platoon is a long way from anything, he is the trauma bay. This patch is for the men who earned that title and the Marines who trusted them.

The Navy formally recognized the SARC and the Special Operations Independent Duty Corpsman in 1994 with their own NECs, HM-8427 and HM-8403, after years of sharing codes with SEAL and SWCC medics. Today the qualification carries the NEC L11A. The road starts at Hospital Corpsman A School and Field Medical Training Battalion, then moves to Camp Pendleton for the Reconnaissance Training Assessment Program and Basic Reconnaissance Course. From there it is SERE, jump school at Fort Benning, the Marine Combatant Diver Course and Amphibious Reconnaissance Course at Panama City, and the long Special Operations Combat Medic course at Fort Bragg. SARCs serve with Force Reconnaissance companies, with division Recon Battalion platoons, usually one doc per platoon, and with MARSOC, while reserve SARCs drill with 4th Reconnaissance Battalion.

The patch is a black disc with a copper-gold border, and a pair of gold wings spreads past the edge on both sides, so the outline follows the wings rather than a plain circle. At the center is an open parachute set on those wings, the jump qualification that every SARC carries. Behind it is a red cross on the black field, the corpsman's mark, crossed by white gear that reads as a syringe and a fighting knife. A small gold banner under the wings reads SARC, and the copper lettering around the top spells out SPECIAL AMPHIBIOUS RECONNAISSANCE CORPSMAN. Around the bottom runs the line every recon doc knows: THE DIFFICULT ANYTIME, THE IMPOSSIBLE BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

Recon Marines are not easily impressed, and a corpsman has to earn his place in that platoon twice, once as a recon man and once as the doc. SARCs carry that double load on every mission, navigating, swimming and humping the same weight as everyone else while keeping enough in reserve to work on a casualty when it counts. Many go on to the Special Operations Independent Duty Corpsman course and run medical care for a whole detachment. The community is small, and most of its members know each other by name. The motto on this patch is half joke and half job description, and anyone who has worked with a recon doc knows which half is which.

Measuring 4.25 by 3.5 inches with a cut edge that follows the wings, it comes with iron-on backing and can also be sewn on for a permanent hold. It fits a shadow box with a trident or jump wings, a ruck, a range bag or the jacket you wear to a recon reunion. It also makes a solid gift for a corpsman finishing the pipeline or a doc who brought Marines home. A small patch for a small community that never needed a big one.