Space Force flag joins other black field flags: Waffen SS, Al Qaeda, and Neo-Nazis.
May 19-20, 2020 -- Trump's Space Force flag resembles some troubling others
Washington
A group of U.S. Air Force officials, including Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett, Chief of Space Operations General Jay Raymond, and senior enlisted adviser Chief Master Sgt. Robert Towberman, presented Donald Trump with the new flag of the U.S. Space Force on May 15 at an unveiling ceremony in the Oval Office. Although the flag design generally resembles those of other military services, it is the Space Force flag's field of black that has stirred controversy among vexillologists -- those who study flags -- and military heraldry experts.
The military services have adhered to a policy in the design of their flags that uses one of the three primary colors of the U.S. flag -- red, white, or blue -- on their fields. Therefore, the fields of the Army and Coast Guard flags are white, those of the Navy, Air Force, the Army and Air National Guard, and Merchant Marine are blue, and that of the Marine Corps is red.
Designed by the Institute of Heraldry at Fort Belvoir, Virginia and manufactured by the Defense Logistics Agency in Philadelphia, the Space Force flag places the Space Force's seal, which was approved by Trump in January, on a black field with the words "United States Space Force" and Roman numerals "MMXIX" (2019) below it. The seal contains a silver Delta Wing, which strongly resembles the fictional symbol of Star Fleet Command in the "Star Trek" television series and movies. [left]
Although flags do contain the color black, overall, it is only found in 5.5 percent of national flags, including those of Germany, Belgium, South Korea, South Africa, and Jamaica, but only as one of other colors. Black is almost never found as the color of a flag's field, as is the case with the Space Force flag.
It may or may not surprise the Trump White House and Trump supporters what other flags have black fields. They include the "Jolly Roger" flag used by pirates of yore, funeral and mourning flags (including the POW/MIA flag), various Nazi flags (including the Black Sun, and the flag of the Waffen Schutzstaffel (Waffen SS), and the flags of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and their offshoots. With black as its flag's field, it would appear that the Space Force's mission is one of aggression and creating mayhem in outer space. Since the White House had no problem with ripping off the Star Fleet Command logo, perhaps it would have been easier to just adopt the flag of the Klingon Empire for the U.S. Space Force, particularly since it resembles the flag used by Trump's "fine people" and "good people."
Left to right: Jolly Roger, funeral flag, POW/MIA flag, Nazi Black Sun flag, Neo-Nazi Celtic Cross flag, Waffen SS flag, Al Qaeda flag, ISIL flag, and Klingon flag.