Also known as a unit crest or DUI, a Distinctive Unit Insignia is worn by all Soldiers (except General Officers) in units that have been
authorized to be issued the device. It is worn centered on the shoulder loops of the Army Green Service Uniform (AGSU) and the blue Army Service Uniform (Enlisted only) with the base of the insignia toward the outside shoulder seam. DUIs are not worn on the Dress variations of either uniform, however.
Enlisted personnel wear the insignia centered on a shoulder loop by placing it an equal distance from the outside shoulder seam to the outside edge of the shoulder-loop button. Officers (except Generals) wearing grade insignia on the shoulder loops center the DUI by placing it an equal distance between the inside edge of the grade insignia and the outside edge of the button.
Full guidance on wear of the DUI is found in DA Pamphlet 670-1,
Section 21-22, "Distinctive unit insignia" and 21–3(d) and (e),
"Beret" and
"Garrison Cap," respectively.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The 16th Medical Battalion was originally formed as the 6th Medical Supply Depot in the Regular Army, constituted 21 December 1928 but not activated until 25 May 1942. The following year (24 August 1943) it was redesignated as the 6th Medical Supply Depot and deployed to Europe, earning it a World War II Victory Medal with an uninscribed European-African-Middle Eastern Theater Streamer.
Briefly inactivated between January and June 1946, the unit was redesignated as the 6th Army Medical Depot on 1 March 1949; it was under this designation that the unit participated in all ten campaigns of the Korean War and was the recipient of two Meritorious Unit Commendations and a Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation. It also marked the point at which the unit would remain in stationed in Korea.
In 1954, the unit was again redesignated, this time as 6th Medical Depot, and two dozen years would elapse before it underwent another name change: on 1 January 1978 it became the 6th Medical Supply, Optical and Maintenance Unit (MEDSOM).
It wasn’t until 1993 that it finally became Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 16th Medical Battalion, with its organic elements concurrently constituted and activated. It would serve in Korea under this designation until October 2008, when it was deactivated and replaced by U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center-Korea.