Display your pride of service with our United States Navy Veteran lapel pin! This tastefully designed pin features the Navy colors of blue and white and several commonly used elements of Navy insignia—rope, anchor, eagle, and shield. In the center of the lapel is an eagle with outstretched wings clutching a horizontal anchor. It’s a design that hearkens back to one of the U.S. Navy’s most defining moments: the establishment of the rank of Chief Petty Officer in 1893.
For the new rank’s cap device, the Navy created an insignia of an eagle perched on a horizontal anchor, but it was a mirror image of this design—both the eagle and the anchor’s arms were facing to the wearer’s left. In 1941, the Navy reversed the direction eagles would face on all insignia.
Today, the gold buttons found on Navy dress uniforms worn by active-duty and Reserve personnel have the eagle facing to the wearer’s right, but the anchor’s arms are still on the wearer’s left. It’s a subtle difference from the design on this lapel pin where the anchor arm is on the wearer’s right, but one that our country’s 4.2-million-plus Navy veterans are sure to notice.