GRIM REAPERS

Grim Reapers was the nickname of the 4451st Test Squadron, which operated under the 4450th Tactical Group at the Tonopah Test Range during the 1980s. The unit's mission was to fly a squadron of classified stealth fighters.

When the Pentagon announced the existence of the stealth fighter program in the late 1980s, the Grim Reapers were redesignated as the 416th Tactical Fighter Squadron. After the Grim Reapers' existence became public, the Air Force forced the unit to change their name, as it did not pass the Air Force's requirements for good taste. The Grim Reapers thus became the Ghost Riders.

PROCUL ESTE PROFANI —SPECIAL PROJECTS

This patch is from the 416th Flight Test Squadron's Special Projects Flight working on advanced technologies for the F-16 Combined Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base.

The phrase Procul Este Profani is usually associated with Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid. When Apollo arrives at the Temple of Apollo, the prophet Sibyl utters the words "Procul, O procul este profane" before the pair descend into Hades, where Aeneas is told about the future of Rome.

Members of the unit translate the phrase as "Keep your distance, you who are uninitiated."

AF TENCAP SPECIAL APPLICATIONS, OBERINT DUM METUANT

TENCAP is an acronym for Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities, a collection of programs that involve developing tactical (battlefield) applications out of reconnaissance satellite capabilities (which are normally thought of as strategic).

"Special" almost invariably means "black" or highly classified.

The phrase "Oderint Dum Metuant" is associated with Caligula, the First century Roman emperor whose name became synonymous with depravity, madness, cruelty, and tyranny. It translates "Let them hate so long as they fear."

SI EGO CERTIOREM FACIAM, MIHI TU DELENDUS ERIS

This patch was designed as a generic insignia for "black" projects conducted by the Navy's Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Four (VX-4) based at Point Mugu, California. It was reportedly used during the navy's involvement with the TSSAM program. It may still be worn by members of the VX-9 squadron formed from a merger of VX-4 and VX-5. VX-9's mission is to test strike aircraft, conventional weapons, electronic warfare equipment, and to develop tactics involving these weapons systems. The Latin phrase "Si Ego Certiorem Faciam ... Mihi Tu Delendus Eris" roughly translates into a cliche commonly heard in the vicinity of "black" programs: "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

But the phrasing here is unusual because it is written in the passive voice: a more accurate translation of the Latin would be "I could tell you, but then you would have to be destroyed by me." By employing the passive voice the patch's designer makes two references that don't exist in other phrasings. The first reference is to the Greek God of Chaos, Eris, about whom Homer wrote in Book Four of the Iliad:

"[Eris] whose wrath is relentless, she is the sister and companion of murderous Ares. She who is only a little thing at the first, but thereafter grows until she strides on the earth with her head striking heaven. She then hurled down bitterness equally between both sides as she walked through the onslaught making men's pain heavier."

The passive phrasing of the Latin also echoes the words of a Second century B.C. Roman senator named Cato the Elder, who roamed the Senate repeating the words "Carthago delenda est"—"Carthage must be destroyed." In 149 B.C., Cato got his wish and Rome attacked the city, which was located in North Africa near present-day Tunis. Three years after beginning their assault, the Roman army overran Carthage, tore down its walls, and sold its inhabitants into slavery. After the Roman Senate declared that no one would ever live where Carthage had stood, legend holds that Rome salted the earth around the city in order to ensure that Carthage would remain a wasteland for generations.