More than fabric: every moral patch tells a story
Video / October 31, 2025
Transcript
Hi. My name is Chief Petty Officer 1st Class Mike Umbach, and I am fortunate enough to be the coxswain on board HMCS Max Bernays.
Today, I’m just going to talk to you about our uniform and what we wear while we’re at sea. Of course, t has our name, our rank, that we’re in the Navy. It has our naval ensign and our ship’s crest.
The Sea Service Insignia here, that tells us how many days you’ve been at sea. There’s four different levels. First one is 180 days; that’s the gun metal. Next is bronze, at 730 days. After that, it’s silver, at 1095 days. And then, the highest level is gold, at 1460 sea days. And it also has our morale patch. And our morale patch represents what we do on operations, deployments, exercises, or whatever major milestone in a ship’s career.
I can talk about some of the morale patches here that I’ve been fortunate enough to celebrate and be part of. This is our normal HMCS Max Bernays’ one, that celebrates our motto; it’s “Undaunted by fire.”
And in the reflection of the Max Bernays is HMCS Assiniboine. That’s our connection to the past. That was the boat that Max Bernays was coxswain of when he took actions in World War II and saved his ship.
This is our Coastal Transfer. It represents the East and West Coasts – sailors that crewed Max Bernays and delivered this ship to the Pacific Fleet.
This is our Commissioning Crew patch. May 3, 2024, we were fortunate enough to be commissioned by Princess Anne in Vancouver. So, that was a very significant event for HMCS Max Bernays. We’re proud to be part of that.
This was our very first official exercise, that we conducted last year. It was Rim of the Pacific Exercise, conducted off Hawaii. That was a very big exercise for Max Bernays to be part of.
And these other patches represent different units that we’ve done exchanges with, Sept-Îles.
This represents some of the North Warning Systems and our connection to the northern communities.
These patches mean to me. They represent significant contributions by our ship’s company to the operations – whether it be RIMPAC – introducing new capability to the fleet. Sailors are proud to wear them. They put a lot of effort into the design. But it does represent dedication, leadership, time and effort, time away from home.
It’s really something that I think all sailors can really be proud of.