Have a coat of arms

“I’ve been trying to make a personal coat of arms (or achievement, as it’s properly known) for a long time now. First thing’s first: in the UK and many other countries, you can’t just go ahead and design your own coat of arms. To officially acquire one, you have to have one presented to you by the College of Arms. But it’s extremely unlikely they’re ever going to knight me, and if they did, I doubt they’d let me use the one I came up with myself. So, no, this isn’t an official coat of arms. But it’s a symbol designed using heraldic convention which I could still use to represent myself, especially if I get it copyrighted. So you can do that too, if you have the same peculiar desire to have a coat of arms that I do.”

“For example, these are my assumed arms, which I designed myself, and what the elements of the design mean to me: Livery colors: green and gold, which are the colors of the dress uniform I wore while serving in the United States Army, and represent service to others and sacrifice above self. Ordinary: a single gold chevron, which is the rank insignia for Private E-2, the second lowest in the US Army but the highest I achieved, which represents humility. Charges: *The green crescent on the chevron is a mark of cadence indicating a second son as I have an older brother who is still living. Cadency marks are no longer common but I choose to include it. *Two gold gates, which represent the surname of my English ancestors who crossed the Atlantic with 35 others in 1638 who co-founded Hingham, MA. *The gold wheat sheaf relates to the Montana farm homesteaded by my great grandfather nearly 120 years ago and now owned by my father. [...] For a fairly simple design, it says a lot. Yours can too.”