A recent publicly released Navy photo showed a member of a helicopter squadron sporting a patch that says “Houthi Hunting Club Red Sea 2023-2024,” with an image of the Tusken Raiders from “Star Wars.” The image has since been removed from the military’s imagery and video database where it was first published. Tusken Raiders are better known — in and out of universe — as “sand people.” The patch shows two Tusken Raiders, one wielding a “gaffi stick,” inside a crosshair.
The photo of the patch was included in a Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, or DVIDS, news release about members of Helicopter Maritime Squadron (HSM)-74 visiting Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida on Monday, Oct. 28. The images were posted online that day. As of Friday, Nov. 1 that post has been taken down by DVIDS. The service has not publicly stated why the images were posted only to be deleted.
“A close-up view of Lt. Kyle Festa’s uniform patch, which commemorates his deployment with Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 74 embarked aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) in the Red Sea, captured during a demonstration onboard Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, on Oct. 28, 2024,” reads the caption for the since-deleted post. “The patch signifies the squadron’s operational achievements and heritage.”
Operation and unit patches are common in the military. Many are authorized, such as the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) patch depicting a vertical sword piercing two lightning bolts. However, units and service members often make and wear informal patches. That same Army PSYOPS unit has a famous informal patch with a dancing ghost on it, a nod to the “ghost in the machine.” Many of the informal ones can be privately commissioned, either off-base or purchased online.
Subscribe to Task & Purpose today. Get the latest military news and culture in your inbox daily.
As for the “Houthi Hunting Club” patch in the photo, it is not clear how widespread it is among HSM-74 or other units that served on the Eisenhower. The unit has been back in the United States after the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower returned from the Middle East in the summer. It’s also unclear how it signifies the unit’s heritage, as the DVIDS caption says, given that the patch only mentions the deployment and only shows the Tusken Raiders. The patches are available online still, although it is not clear if this was the source of the patch seen in the photo.
The Tusken Raiders first appeared in the original “Star Wars” film in 1977, portrayed as a cross between desert nomads and the Western genre’s trope of Native Americans menacing homesteaders, like Luke Skywalker is depicted on Tatooine. The Tatooine scenes were filmed in the Tunisian desert. The term “sand people” is said with derision in those movies.
The Houthi group, a religious and Yemeni nationalist movement backed by Iran, controls much of Yemen in the aftermath of the Yemeni Civil War. The group, whose territory includes major cities including the capital of Sana’a, pledged to disrupt commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in the wake of the start of the Israeli war in Gaza. American forces have spent more than a year shooting down drones and missiles fired by the group, or destroying them before they can launch.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of two Navy aircraft carrier strike groups deployed to the Middle East after the Israeli war in Gaza started. The carrier and its aircraft took part in multiple missions to intercept missiles and drones, operations with partner nations that involved several airstrikes on major cities in Yemen. The exact death toll of those strikes are unknown; the independent watchdog group Airwars reported on multiple instances of civilian casualties from alleged American and British airstrikes in February 2024.
This isn’t the first “Star Wars” related patch to come out of the fight around Yemen. Some crew and visitors on the USS Eisenhower (whose commander Capt. Christopher Hill has made his love for “Star Wars” clear in social media posts) were spotted with “Red Sea Attack of the Drones War” patches, in the style and font of the “Star Wars” title cards. That included Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, who posted a photo with herself wearing the patch.
HSM-74 took part in several operations during the nine-month deployment, including fights with Houthi boats and evacuation missions to rescue crews stuck on damaged commercial ships. The squadron also flew during seven American airstrike operations on Yemen.
The latest on Task & Purpose
- Navy relieves commanding, executive officers of Naval Repair Station Japan
- ‘The Hunt For Red October’ ends in Wyoming as fan lands the giant sub used in the movie
- Army arrests ‘person of interest’ in homicide case of soldier found dead at Ft Leonard Wood
- How Army tank crews earn the right to name their tanks
- Naval aviators killed in Mount Rainier crash flew dozens of combat missions over Red Sea