VMM-261 SPMAGTF (ACM) Africa Response Force

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261 (REIN) "Raging Bulls" — SPMAGTF (Air Contingency MAGTF), with MACG-28 and MALS-26 · USMC · 2025

Worn by the Africa Response Force in 2025, this patch marks VMM-261 (REIN) standing up as the aviation combat element of a Special Purpose MAGTF built around the Air Contingency MAGTF concept — an on-call task force able to begin deploying by strategic airlift within hours of a crisis alert, reinforced here by Marine Air Control Group 28 and Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 26. The New River squadron is no stranger to the continent: it served as the ACE for Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, from October 2023 until VMM-164 relieved it in June 2024. In mid-2025 the Raging Bulls took their MV-22B Ospreys to Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, flying high-altitude familiarization sorties in the thin air off the Front Range before the deployment — and it was there that squadron members gifted this patch to SSgt Sally during pre-deployment certification. The bull rider astride a charging steer under an Osprey's rotors is pure squadron heraldry, the "Raging Bulls" nickname made literal against a desert horizon.