As words go, honor, integrity and duty are not ones to use lightly, especially when woven into a piece of material that’s raised by the Gainesville Police Department.
For that matter, officers don’t view flags as simple symbols, either.
“As Americans, flags have always been important through the years. It’s who we are,” said Capt. Chad White. “Flags identify us.”
Last summer, White expressed interest in seeing the police department have its own unique emblem as many other departments do. He pictured one that could be raised outside the city’s new public safety complex aside the U.S. and Georgia state flags.
He turned to Cpl. Doug Whiddon, patrol officer and commander of the department’s honor guard unit, who envisioned the possibilities such a flag could present his team, as well.
Whiddon recently had encouraged one of the honor guard’s volunteers, officer Josh Adams, to help design a unique unit badge to be included on their new uniforms. The rectangular patch mirrored aspects of the one sewed into most officers’ uniforms.
Yellow sun rays were visible behind the black outline of the state and the mountainous skyline near the Queen City. Three stars were embroidered into the new honor guard patch. They were meant to represent those three words that guide the department’s mission: honor, integrity, duty.
“The words are representative of the entire department,” Whiddon said. “That is also certainly what we want to represent as an honor guard.”
Whiddon wanted to carry the theme forward into the new flag, a project he spearheaded with help from designers at Cotton Eyed Joe’s T-Shirts and Apparel.
Tommy Gower, who’d worked with Adams on the patch, took on the department’s flag challenge, too. While the apparel business had produced basic T-shirt, hat and uniform embroidery for the department, putting together badge and flag designs was a new request, Gower said.
“It was the first time to get to do something kind of creative. It was the second flag I’ve ever done as a designer. It was a cool opportunity,” he said. “They liked the patch and they wanted to do it with the flag. We started with the concept and took elements from it that we could (enlarge) on the flag.”
The process took months, with there being two final versions.
Instead of the sunrays and the mountain outline, however, Whiddon and fellow officers consulted on the project chose a simpler look.
The two columns of blue on each side of the departmental flag represent law enforcement, Whiddon said. The badge centered on the fabric stands for service and protection, the responsibilities entrusted to the officers by the community at large, hesaid.
A special feature was added to the second version of the flag, which is used by the honor guard when they present colors at public ceremonies and funerals.
Those all-important three words of honor, integrity and duty stretch across the bottom of the unit’s departmental flag, which people will see easily at eye-level, Whiddon said.
“It has been exciting for me to see it all come together,” he said. “They vested the trust in me to move the idea forward.”
The new flag was raised on a quiet morning without a lot of fanfare. More officers than usual attended the otherwise routine exercise.
It is situated on a pole next to the U.S. and state flags, as White first envisioned.
“It identifies the men and women who are in this police department” and those who served in the past, White said. “There is more than one person behind that badge he has on his chest, or that’s raised on that flag. There is a whole community.”