USMC Patches

This is an interesting patch, however in typical nonthinking Marine fashion the creator of the patch seems to have been overzealous in their attempt to max out the cool factor by featuring apocalyptic sounding Latin words. I will give the designer some credit in that they managed find two words with the correct meanings, but they failed miserably–and if anyone reading the patch is even a bit curious and looks into the meaning of “mortalis”–the designer will have also failed foolishly. To explain; the words “Celer, Silens, Mortalis” are meant to mean “Swift, Silent, Deadly” (kinda like a good fart). However just as in English, in Latin, words that have to do with a certain subject, for example having to do with death, may not actually be the right fit for the intended message (Swift, Silent, Deadly). In this case Celer and Silens fit just fine because in Latin they actually mean Swift and Silent, however Mortalis in Latin is an adjective that describes something that is subject to death, destined to die, temporary or transient (see: http://latinlexicon.org/definition.php?p1=1010179), in short something that is eventually going to die. For example Mortalis would be used in the following way: That cancer patient is Mortalis (destined to die). While you have to love the Devil Dog’s motivation who designed this insignia, the use of “Mortalis” is a bit of a bad omen in that you have a bunch of grunts creeping through the woods with a patch on their sleeve that advertises that they are Swift, Silent, and Destined to Die (Mortalis). A better choice of apocalyptic and cool sounding Latin word to use instead of Mortalis would have been “Letalis” which is an adjective used to describe something that is “Deadly or Lethal”, i.e. Chuck Norris’s fists are Letalis (deadly). Hopefully now, all you aspirant patch designing warriors out there will heed this short lesson about looking into the details behind things and making sure you don’t commit the same error as Marine Corps Marvin did with this patch–that tells everyone the wearer of said patch has a limited time to live–and when you do set out to design your own sinister looking warrior garment accessories you will do a little homework lest you too look foolish on the battle field and laughed away by the Taliban who don’t waste time making patches, but rather bombs.