Parachute Rigger Badge

Colonel Thomas R. Cross had recently passed away at the age of 101 on July 3, 2020. He was likely to be the last surviving World War II commander of a Parachute Infantry Battalion. What few know, however, Cross designed the original cloth colored Army Parachute Rigger Badge when he was a major serving as the 11th Parachute Maintenance Company, 11th Airborne Division parachute officer in occupied Japan in 1948-49. The Parachute Rigger Badge was first worn publicly in 1950 after the unit relocated to Fort Campbell and Cross had replaced his original