Uniform patches are a military tradition, symbolic down to the last detail. Paglen found many of the book’s examples at the homes of vets he knew. With the help of journalists, historians and hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests, he rounded up 75. “I wanted to create a window into that black world,” Paglen says. The Pentagon isn’t letting any more light in. Department of Defense spokesman Bob Mehal told NEWSWEEK that it “would not be prudent to comment on what patches did or did not represent classified units.” That’s OK. Some mysteries are more fun when they stay unsolved.
