This is the “official” Navy blue ballcap with the squadron mascot (better known as “Gordon”) embroidered directly onto the front of the cap for the VFA-11 crews stationed at NAS Oceana, VA that flew the F-18 Hornet. The Red Ripper squadron insignia as described by an early member: “The boar’s head is taken from the one that graces the label of the Gordon’s Gin bottle. The scroll effect under the head is a string of link sausage, a good line of bologna which all members of the squadron were to be adept at ‘shooting.’ The balls on the shield might be called balls of fire; actually, they were supposed to typify good, strong masculinity. The bolt of lightning was the bar sinister of bastardy. The whole theme was worked into a sort of toast or creed with which the squadron members were to begin and end all good drinking bouts. The official Ripper toast is, ‘Here’s to us, the RED RIPPERS Ð a damn bunch of gin drinking, bologna slinging, two-balled, he-man bastards’.” In 2011, while on liberty in Bahrain, high ranking authorities declared the toast inappropriate and offensive; the toast was banned shortly thereafter.
