The United States Army created its first school for training Soldiers specifically in AntiAircraft tactics and weaponry, the Antiaircraft Training Center, in 1940 at Fort Bliss, Texas. Six years later, the War Department set up the Army Air Defense Center, an umbrella organization that included the Army’s Air Defense School, Guided Missile Brigade, Army Training Center Antiaircraft Artillery, Army Air Defense Board, Antiaircraft Artillery Group, and the Offices of Special Weapons Development.
At the same time, the Army established the HQ for its Antiaircraft Artillery and Guided Missile Center (AAGMC), and eventually these components would be synthesized into what today is known as the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery Center and School (ADACS).
This struggle for identity is reflected to some degree in the various designations the ADACS patch has been given in the past sixty-plus years. It was originally approved for the Antiaircraft Artillery and Guided Missile School on 16 August 156, but was redesignated less than a year later for the Antiaircraft Artillery and Guided Missile Center on 29 April 1957.
It carried this designation for decade until it was redesignated for U.S. Army Air Defense Center and Fort Bliss on 25 November 1967; the insignia was amended to extend wear authorization to include personnel serving at the U.S. Army Air Defense School on 19 June 1981. It was redesignated for a final time on 28 July 2011, with an updated description, for the U.S. Army Air Defense Center and is authorized today by both ADA Center and ADA School personnel.
The scarlet field of the insignia is the traditional color of Artillery; the blue in the center denotes the sky, the true theater of operations for Air Defense Artillery Soldiers. Two stylized gold lightning flashes symbolize the electronic transmission used during electronic warfare for guidance of missiles, represented by the ordnance rising skyward in the center.
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