USS America CV-66 Patch

The two gold stags holding up USS America's shield are adapted from the stags on John Paul Jones's own coat of arms, and here they finish in fish tails. Jones was named to command the first ship called America, a 74-gun ship of the line that went to France as a gift in 1782 before he ever took her to sea. When the Kitty Hawk-class carrier CV-66 took the name, her crest went back to him and to the Revolution. Commissioned on 23 January 1965 at Norfolk, the Big A spent 31 years in commission. Most of that time she worked the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, with three trips to the Pacific for Vietnam.

America was built by Newport News Shipbuilding, launched on 1 February 1964 and commissioned in 1965. She reached Yankee Station on 30 May 1968 with Carrier Air Wing 6, returned in 1970 with CVW-9, and made her third Vietnam cruise from June 1972 to March 1973 with CVW-8. On 14 April 1986 she launched six A-6 Intruders and six A-7E Corsair IIs against Libya in Operation El Dorado Canyon. With Carrier Air Wing 1 she flew Desert Storm strikes from the Red Sea, then entered the Persian Gulf on 14 February 1991. In 1994 she sailed for Haiti in Operation Uphold Democracy with Army helicopters on deck, and she supported operations over Bosnia before she was decommissioned on 9 August 1996.

This round patch has a thick gold merrowed border, with UNITED STATES SHIP running around the top and AMERICA around the bottom between small stars. On a dark blue field stands the full crest: a red shield with two gold arrowheads for the carrier's striking power, and a white diamond holding a coiled blue rattlesnake from the flags of the Revolution. The two gold stags with fish tails stand on either side, each wearing a small shield, one with a white star and one with a fleur-de-lis, for the honors the United States and France gave Jones. Above the shield a sailing ship with a red sail and gold lion recalls Bonhomme Richard's fight with HMS Serapis. The scroll beneath reads DON'T TREAD ON ME.

America was a big-deck, hard-working Atlantic Fleet carrier, and her crews earned that through Vietnam, the Med, Lebanon, Libya and the Gulf. The Big A sent strikes into the Gulf War from both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Thousands of sailors and the men of her air wings called her home over three decades. On 14 May 2005 she went down southeast of Cape Hatteras after weeks of live-fire testing, and what was learned from her went into the carriers that came after. Plenty of her crew still wear the snake.

The patch measures 4 by 4 inches with a merrowed edge and iron-on backing, and it can also be sewn on. Put it in a shadow box with your cruise book and air wing patches, or on a jacket for the next ship's reunion. It also makes a good gift for a father or grandfather who did his time on the Big A. She is gone, but the crest still means something to the men who served aboard.