Marine Corps Gifts: Uncle Sam's Misguided Children Shirts and Tumblers

Say "Uncle Sam's Misguided Children" to a Marine and watch what happens. You get a grin, usually, and then a story. Say it to anybody else and you get a blank look.

That is the whole appeal, and it is why most Marine Corps gifts miss. A shirt with an eagle, globe and anchor on it says the recipient was in the Corps. A shirt that says USMC down the front and spells it out as Uncle Sam's Misguided Children says somebody actually knew him. There are five of these now — three shirts and two personalized tumblers — and they are all built around the same joke told three different ways.

Where the nickname actually comes from

Worth knowing before you put it on a shirt, because it is older than most people assume.

The earliest printed use anybody has turned up is December 1950, in the Marietta Daily Journal in Georgia. The paper ran a letter from a Marine cut off near the Chosin Reservoir in Korea. He signed it "With Uncle Sam's Misguided Children." Seventy-five years ago, at the worst moment of that campaign, it was already an in-joke worth signing a letter with.

It keeps surfacing after that. A VFW post in New Jersey advertised a "USMC night" for Uncle Sam's Misguided Children in 1962. A Marine in Vietnam worked it into a poem printed in a Massachusetts paper in 1969. In 1982 the Associated Press reported Marines in Beirut writing it underneath USMC.

Korea, Vietnam, Beirut. Three generations of Marines, same four words. It is not a slogan somebody invented to sell shirts — it was already there.

The Uncle Sam's Misguided Children emblem tee

The Marine Corps emblem tee is the most restrained of the three. One round patch on the chest — black ring, two red stars, UNCLE SAM'S arched over the top and MISGUIDED CHILDREN across the bottom. Inside it, Uncle Sam in digital camo utilities and a camo top hat, sunglasses on, pointing straight at you, with a nametape that reads UNCLE SAM.

Bella + Canvas 3001, 12 colors, XS to 4XL with a 5XL in white, $24.99.

12 Colors, XS to 4XL
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Which color. Military green is the obvious one and it earns it — the camo in the artwork sits against a green the same way it would on a cammie blouse. Black is the safe default and throws the red stars forward. Tan reads like a desert cammie top and is quieter than it sounds. The patch is a closed circle, so it works on light colors too; white and vintage white both hold it cleanly.

The USMC camo tee

The USMC camo tee takes the same joke and makes it loud. Four enormous letters stacked down the chest, every one of them filled with digital camouflage — Uncle, Sam's, Misguided, Children — with the rest of each word running off the letter in gold. Beside them, Uncle Sam again, this time in full cammies with a rifle, over an American flag, with a helmet and dog tags at the base.

Same blank, same 12 colors, same $24.99.

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Which color. This is the one to buy in black. The artwork is drawn against a dark ground and the camo fill in the letters has nowhere to hide on a pale shirt. Navy and vintage black do the same job with a little less contrast. If you want it light, white is the pick — it pushes the flag colors hardest.

The vintage Uncle Sam tee

The vintage Uncle Sam's Misguided Children tee is the one that looks like it has been in the drawer since a reunion in 1994. Distressed red USMC lettering, a classic Uncle Sam rather than a tactical one, flag artwork behind him, and the whole thing printed with the wear already in it.

Twelve colors, XS to 4XL with a 5XL in white, $24.99 — same as the other two.

Vintage Print, 12 Colors
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Which color. Vintage white and tan are the ones that finish the illusion — a faded print on a faded shirt reads as one object rather than a new shirt pretending. Black is the loudest and makes the red lettering jump. Pink is not a joke here; the red artwork sits on it better than on most of the greys.

The two personalized tumblers

Both shirt designs have a matching 20 oz tumbler, and the tumblers are where a shirt stops being a shirt and becomes a gift with somebody's name on it.

The personalized Uncle Sam's Misguided Children tumbler carries the vintage artwork; the personalized USMC camo tumbler carries the camo lettering. Both are insulated stainless steel in white, silver or black, $28.99, with a line underneath the artwork for whatever you want printed there.

White, Silver or Black
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That line is the difference between a cup and the cup. A rank and a name. A unit. An MOS. The years somebody served. SEMPER FIDELIS, if they are the sort who would want it. STILL MISGUIDED, if they are the other sort.

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Silver is the one that looks least like a printed object — brushed steel under the artwork reads as one piece. Black is the field thermos. White throws the hardest contrast and is easiest to read a custom line on from across a kitchen.

Not sure what to put on it? The walkthrough on what actually goes on the two lines of a USMC tumbler covers rank abbreviations, how unit designations are written and how much text really fits.

Which one for which Marine

Five products, one joke, and they are genuinely not interchangeable.

• He wears the Corps quietly. The emblem tee. One patch, no shouting, and civilians read it as a logo until they get close enough to read it.
• He wants people to see it from across the parking lot. The camo tee in black. Four letters, chest to waist.
• He has been out twenty years and still answers to Gunny. The vintage tee in vintage white or tan.
• You need it to be from you specifically. Either tumbler, with his rank and name on the line.
• It is a retirement or a Marine Corps birthday. A tumbler with the years of service on it, and the matching shirt beside it.

The Marine Corps birthday is November 10, which is the one date on this list that will not move, so the tumblers are worth ordering with a little room in front of it.

More Marine Corps shirts and gifts

These five sit in the wider USMC shirts and Marine Corps apparel collection, alongside the 1775 heritage designs, the crossed rifles prints and the Once A Marine line. Marine aviation has its own pair — there is a separate piece on the F-35B Lightning II tee and tumbler if that is closer to the mark.

Every customizable drinkware design across all the branches lives in personalized military tumblers, and for something that names the service without the punchline, start with the veteran shirts.

Anything AF isn't affiliated with the U.S. Marine Corps or the Department of Defense. "Uncle Sam's Misguided Children" is long-standing Marine Corps folk language, not a brand we own, and every graphic here is original artwork drawn in-house.

Sources: the Big Apple etymology archive's citation history for "Uncle Sam's Misguided Children", which records the December 1950 Marietta Daily Journal letter from the Chosin Reservoir as the earliest known printed use, along with the 1962, 1969 and 1982 citations.