How a Blackhawk Crew Chief Built an American-Made Apparel Brand

1765 Apparel was founded by Will Hawn — a U.S. Army veteran and former Blackhawk helicopter crew chief who served two tours in Iraq. He started the brand for a simple reason: he couldn't find faith-and-country apparel that was actually made in America, actually well-built, and made by someone who'd lived the convictions printed on it. So he built it himself.

It started in a broken home

Will's story doesn't start with a business plan. It starts in a broken home — and with the question a beginning like that leaves in a man: what do you stand on when the ground under you keeps moving?

It took him decades, an army, and a war to answer it.

The Army, and two tours in Iraq

He found the first part of the answer in uniform. As a Blackhawk crew chief he was responsible for his aircraft and the men it carried — across two deployments to Iraq.

The Army taught him the thing the brand is built on: you stand somewhere, you belong to something, and you're accountable for the people next to you.

The long road home to the faith

The second part took longer: a search that ran for years after the war, and ended home in the Catholic faith.

What he came home to is the conviction stamped on every shirt: God first, then the country built to let men worship Him freely. Everything else falls in line behind that.

Why he built 1765 Apparel

Will kept seeing the same thing: faith-and-flag apparel everywhere, almost none of it real. Printed on cheap blanks made overseas. Sold by marketers, not believers. Conviction reduced to a slogan somebody tested for clicks.

So he built the opposite — and built it to a standard:

• American-made, dirt to shirt. US-grown, milled, cut, and sewn cotton (the Bayside 5100). No imported blank wearing a flag. Read the supply-chain proof.
• Marks with real weight. Two thousand years of Christian heritage and 250 years of American resistance — Christus Rex, Militia Christi, the Appeal to Heaven pine, the Stamp Act year itself.
• Made by someone who's stood the watch. Not a costume — the same gear he wears.

1765 Apparel is the God & Country sister to the God & Men ministry at 1765 Sanctum — one house, one fight, now with something to wear it on.

Questions people ask

Who founded 1765 Apparel?

Will Hawn, a U.S. Army veteran and former Blackhawk crew chief who served two tours in Iraq, founded 1765 Apparel to make genuinely American-made faith-and-country apparel.

Is 1765 Apparel actually made in America?

Yes — dirt to shirt. The cotton is grown, milled, cut, and sewn in the United States (the Bayside 5100), not imported and merely printed here.

What's the connection between 1765 Apparel and 1765 Sanctum?

They're one house. 1765 Sanctum is the "God & Men" ministry; 1765 Apparel is its "God & Country" sister brand. Same founder, same convictions.

Go deeper: What does 1765 mean? · Is American-made apparel worth it? · About the brand · Shop the line