Soldiers with the US army's 101st Airborne Battalion say that they were ordered to remove their combat patches during training, in order to not make new soldiers feel bad.
"The unit just returned from [Afghanistan] and almost everyone has a patch, but the large influx of new soldiers we just got are E-1s and E-2s [the lowest enlisted ranks] that have never deployed, and they are saying they are left out because they don’t have a patch," explained a post on the popular Facebook page U.S. Army W.T.F.! Moments.
A spokesman for the unit, however, denies the claims. "According to brigade leadership, there was never a command or directive given to soldiers regarding the removal of their shoulder sleeve insignia-former wartime service [combat patch]," he told Army Times.