Prowler Cougar

VAQ-139 "Cougars" (Electronic Attack Squadron 139) — attribution unconfirmed · USN · 1983-2011

A cougar's head fills this subdued grey disc above a single word: PROWLER. Electronic Attack Squadron 139, the "Cougars," stood up at NAS Whidbey Island on 1 July 1983 and flew the Grumman EA-6B Prowler for the next twenty-eight years, jamming enemy radar and communications over Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and Iraq before completing its final Prowler cruise aboard USS Ronald Reagan in 2011 and transitioning to the EA-18G Growler. Blacked-out patches like this one were worn on flight suits where full-color squadron insignia would have been conspicuous, the cat's stalking predator imagery doubling as a portrait of the aircraft itself — a slow, ungainly airframe that hunted the electromagnetic spectrum rather than the sky.