32678
AIR FORCE SPECIALTY CODE · AVIONICS SPECIALIST · 1982–1991
OUR STORY
Dave Hammonds served in the United States Air Force from 1982 to 1991. Air Force Specialty Code 32678 — Avionics Specialist — maintaining the weapon systems of the F‑16 Fighting Falcon at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and Hahn Air Base in West Germany, with temporary duty at Zaragoza in Spain and Incirlik in Turkey. Nine years. Nine months. Ten moves.
The family did not follow the service. The family was the service. Three children — Nicole, Megan, and Michael. Beside him through every posting, every country, every new beginning: Joanna, the wife of his youth and the love of his life — a Proverbs 31 woman who made every place home.
Michael, the youngest, was born at Hahn Air Base in West Germany — a front-line NATO base built for a war that never came, close enough to the Iron Curtain that the aircraft there stood alert against it. A child born where the Cold War was coldest.
On July 4th, 1991 — Independence Day — he was honorably discharged from the United States Air Force after nine years and nine months, and walked off a military installation for the last time as an enlisted airman. He did not plan it that way. That is not coincidence. That is completion.
Thirty years later, his hands found a second use for the materials of that era.
THE MATERIALS
Every material in these goods served before the brand existed. The inventory reads like a record because it is one.
The exterior. Waxed Olive Drab canvas. The color of every American field uniform since the Second World War. Impregnated with paraffin to perform in any condition without complaint. It will patina. That is the point.
The lining. A friendly-force marker — the orange cloth a unit lays out so its own side, and the aircraft overhead, know not to fire on it. Two markers run through this work, one generation apart. The VS‑17: fluorescent orange on one face, cerise on the other, 400-denier nylon. In American service since Vietnam, through the whole Cold War, into Desert Storm — through his nine years and nine months. A ground unit spread it to tell the pilots above: friendly. The marker of his years. The Combat Identification Panel: its descendant. When thermal sights could find at night what the eye could not, the panel added a thermal face to the same orange marker — a low-emissivity surface that mirrors the cold of the open sky and reads as a deliberate cold shape through an infrared sight. Made by NVEC of Emmaus, Pennsylvania, and fielded across Iraq and Afghanistan — the wars after his. The orange side faces out, where you see it. The same marker, one generation on. Each bag is lined with one of them; its record names which. The man who builds these bags kept those aircraft flying. These panels existed to be read from above. That is not coincidence. That is provenance.
The zippers. Genuine Cold War-era Talon brass, salvaged from original American old stock. Talon zipped up the flight suits and field jackets of mid-century America; its US factories closed decades ago, and this exact article — the gauge, the finish, the pull — has not been made since. A finite supply, not a reorderable part.
Three colors, three series. The brass comes in red, blue, and tan — red for Flight, blue for Maintenance, tan for Field. The full run at 32678.shop.
The webbing. Olive drab tubular nylon. Military surplus. It finishes the zipper ends as pull tabs — doing a small job with the same integrity it was built for a larger one.
The construction. A Sailrite LSZ‑1, an American-made industrial walking foot machine. Tan Tex 90 bonded polyester thread. Flat felled seams along the base, not hidden. They are the design. Built by hand. One at a time. No shortcuts, for the same reason there were none on the flight line.
The tag. Solid brass, new — not pulled from anything. Laser-etched, the build number on one side and 32678 on the other. It will patina. That is intentional.
The new work. Not everything is salvaged. The thread, the bias and seam tape, the brass tag — these are new, chosen for longevity. They are the parts that must not fail, so they are the parts bought fresh, so the bag outlasts the history sewn into it.
THE NUMBER
Every finished piece carries a laser‑etched brass tag with a hand‑stamped build number. Build 000 is the proof copy. Builds 001, 002, and 003 are reserved for the children, in birth order, and will never be sold. The open run begins at Build 004. When the materials are gone, the run ends.
The materials served once. The goods are the second service. The name is a description, not a slogan.
Second Service Goods launched on the Fourth of July, 2026 — thirty-five years to the day.
Field proven. Built to last.