History
The first parachute rigger badge was designed in 1948 by Major Thomas R. Cross and drawn by Sergeant First Class Ewing of the 11th Parachute Maintenance Company, 11th Airborne Division at Camp Schimmelpfenning, Sendai, Japan, and was first used operationally during Exercise Swarmer in 1950.
Prior to the official adoption of the badge, it had been worn under Major Command commander’s authority to authorize the wear of locally designed badges on the utility uniform.
Official adoption of the badge had been sought for many years by a variety of Quartermaster officials. The adoption was based on a formal request submitted by Mr. James S. Emery, Military Analyst, Airborne Department, Quartermaster School in 1983. This request received unprecedented support from the field, unfortunately it was disapproved at the time. In 1986, General Richard H. Thompson, commander of the U.S. Army Materiel Command and the senior Quartermaster officer in the Army wrote the Chief of Staff of the Army asking him to reconsider the 1983 decision. After requesting some field comments, General Wickham approved the parachute riggers badge on 9 June 1986.
Read more about this topic: Parachute Rigger Badge
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“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)