Often called a unit crest or DUI for short, the 185th Armor Regiment Distinctive Unit Insignia was originally approved on 2 May 1952 while the unit was still designated as the 140th Heavy Tank Battalion. It was redesignated for the 185th Armor Regiment on 5 April 1961, with an amendment made to change the symbolism on 10 October 1969. Its yellow and green colors are the colors for Armor (though yellow is the sole branch Armor color now). A pair of sea lions stand for the two campaigns the unit’s forebears fought in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater in World War II, with a clubhead (a weapon wielded by islanders in the Bismarck Archipelago) positioned below them to indicate battle honors in that area as well.
A green dividing line in the shield is a reference to the mountains of Korea and the Presidential Unit Citation the organization was awarded during the Korean War. At the bottom is the unit motto, “FULMEN JACIO,” which translates into English as “I Hurl The Thunderbolt.”
You can find guidance on wear of the DUI in DA Pamphlet 670-1, Section 21-22, "Distinctive unit insignia" and 21–3(d) and (e), "Beret" and "Garrison Cap," respectively.
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The 185th Armor Regiment is an organization in the U.S. Army Regimental System represented in the California Army National Guard by the 1st Battalion (1-185 Armor), which as of Autumn 2023 is assigned to the Washington Army National Guard. Like all National Guard units it has both Federal and State mission statements. When called into Federal service, it is tasked with the reorganization of individual squad and crews and trains them in preparation for future deployment. On order, the 1st Battalion, 185th Armor will mobilize and deploy to a theater within 30 days to support national policy by finding, fixing, closing, and destroying or repelling enemy forces through fire, shock, maneuver, or close combat. At the State level, the unit is prepared to respond within 24 hours to a request for support from the State of California.
The Regiment was originally constituted on 22 July 1885 in the California National Guard as the 7th Infantry Battalion and organized from existing companies at Los Angeles and San Diego. It was expanded, reorganized, and redesignated as the 7th Infantry Regiment on 5 May 1888. By the time it was drafted into Federal service in August 1917, it had been designated as the 7th California Volunteer Infantry and was subsequently consolidated with several other units from the 2nd Infantry Regiment to formt the 160th Infantry. It was assigned to the 40th Division, which was designated as the 6th Depot Division and was used as a source of replacement troops and thus did not see action as a unit, resulting in an uninscribed World War I Victory streamer for it and its subordinate units.
Following demobilization in May 1919, the 160th was reconstituted from former elements of the Regiment from southern California and redesignated in the California National Guard as the 160th Infantry and assigned to the 40th Division. In 1929, its 2nd Battalion was withdrawn and reorganized/redesignated as the 2nd Battalion, 185th Infantry—and then it was expanded and reorganized as the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 185th Infantry, which were subsequently expanded and reorganized as the 223rd and 224th Infantry regiments. Topping the changes off was another round of redesignations in which those two Infantry Regiments became Tank Battalions (the 133rd and 139th).
To try and follow the lineage of all these components of what eventually became the 185th is extremely challenging, to say the least; suffice it to say that units in the Regiment’s lineage took part in three Asiatic-Pacific Theater campaigns, earning two Arrowhead devices for taking part in assault landings. They would also fight in four Korean War campaigns, serving with the 40th Infantry Division, between 1952 and 1954.
The 185th Infantry was finally brought into existence through the consolidation of the 111th Reconnaissance Battalion (previously the 160th Infantry Regiment), 133rd and 139th Tank Battalions, and the 140th and 134th Tank Battalions. It goes without saying that the Regiment underwent numerous reorganizations between that time and its withdrawal from the Combat Arms Regimental system in January 1988. The 185th Armor was not called into combat again until 2004, when it was deployed to Iraq as part of the 81st Heavy Brigade Combat Team, the first of three deployments in support of the War on Terrorism.