United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard
The Naval Aviation Observer Badge was first created in 1922 and authorized to navigators and other support personnel on multi-person naval aircraft. The original badge was based on the design of the Naval Aviator badge, but with a single left-side wing and a circular "O" surmounting the foul anchor rather than a shield. In 1927 this insignia was superseded by a new device, identical to the Naval Aviator's wings but in silver rather than gold.
This in turn was replaced by a gold insignia with a center device of a silver anchor within a silver circle that was used from 1929 to 1968.
For a brief period starting in 1945, the Secretary of the Navy approved distinct insignia for Naval Aviation Observers with Navigation, Radar, Tactical, and Aerology specialization. These were abolished in favor of the standardized gold insignia/silver anchor/silver circle design.
In 1966, a new insignia was designed, and by 1968 the Naval Aviation Observer Badge was phased out in favor of the Naval Flight Officer Badge. The Naval Aviation Observer insignia was then modified and granted to non-pilot/non-NFO aviation mission specialists such as in-flight Meteorologists. In this form, the Naval Observer Badge is still in existence but is rarely referred to by its original name and is more commonly known as the Flight Meteorologist Badge. In the Marine Corps, the badge is issued to in-flight aircraft support personnel under its original name as the Naval Aviation Observer Badge.
The Coast Guard authorized the Aviation Mission Specialist designation on August 26, 2003 in COMDTNOTE 1200 (ALCOAST 401/03). Aerial Ice Observers (from the International Ice Patrol) as well as Sensor System Operators, Tactical Systems Operators, Aviation Gunners and Aviation Medical Technicians are eligible for designation. Coast Guard Aviation Mission Specialist personnel wear the same uniform insignia as Naval Aviation Observers. Permanent designation is attained at 200 hours for rotary wing and 400 hours for fixed wing specialists.
Read more about this topic: Observer Badge
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, marine, coast and/or guard:
“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“On September 16, 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“People run away from the name subsidy. It is a subsidy. I am not afraid to call it so. It is paid for the purpose of giving a merchant marine to the whole country so that the trade of the whole country will be benefitted thereby, and the men running the ships will of course make a reasonable profit.... Unless we have a merchant marine, our navy if called upon for offensive or defensive work is going to be most defective.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“What do we want with this vast and worthless area, of this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds, of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs; to what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of 3,000 miles, rockbound, cheerless, uninviting and not a harbor in it?”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“We must be cruel as well as compassionate: let us guard against becoming poorer than nature is!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)