PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2013-11-03 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Navy SEALs Ordered to Remove 'Don't Tread on Me' Patches (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • The Gadsden flag, with its familiar coiled rattlesnake and the warning Don't Tread on Me, is an iconic piece of American revolutionary symbolism. That logo has also been strongly associated with the U.S. Navy and the war on terrorism since U.S. Navy Secretary Gordon England issued an instruction on 31 May 2002 authorizing the rattlesnake jack to replace the union jack as the Navy's official jack for the duration of the Global War on Terrorism. The U.S. Navy began flying the new Navy Jack on 11 September 2002 (the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks), and the rattlesnake jack has been featured in a patch warn on the left shoulder by sailors and SEALs deployed in war zones. On 1 November 2013, the Daily Caller published an opinion piece by Carl Higbie, a former Navy SEAL and Republican candidate for Congress, claiming that new regulations had been issued requiring Navy SEALs to discontinue wearing the Don't Tread On Me patch (the First Navy Jack) on their uniform sleeves in favor of a U.S. flag patch: That piece also suggested the regulation had been issued at the behest of President Obama because the Navy Jack was too closely associated with radical groups such as the Tea Party, who use the similarly-themed Gadsden flag as an emblem: However, the only documentation that article presented for these claims was a reproduction of an e-mail message sent by a Senior Enlisted Advisor whose name was redacted, and a response from an unidentified friend of the author (a former SEAL) he was said to have received when he asked leadership about the reasons behind the regulation. And even if the presented e-mail about the new regulation were genuine, the reasons behind its issuance that were proffered in the article amounted to little more than speculation. (Others suggested less political reasons for the rumored change, such as an attempt to standardize the appearance of the NWU III [Navy Working Uniform] across that service branch.) A few days later the Navy Times published an article in response to the Daily Caller piece that quoted U.S. Navy sources as stating that the Navy was unable to confirm the validity of the email, and that even if it had been issued, it was in error and authorization for Naval Special Warfare personnel to wear the First Navy Jack patch had actually been expanded, not curtailed: The Navy Times followed up by reporting that the rumor had started with a senior enlisted sailor who had misinterpreted new uniform regulations: In fact, eight months after the rumor about the supposedly banned Don't Tread on Me Navy shoulder patches broke, the U.S. Navy was seeking to purchase even more of them: (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url