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 (ASU, 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.
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The 73rd Ordnance Battalion Distinctive Unit Insignia—commonly known as a unit crest or as a DUI—was approved for wear on 8 September 1941. In its center are three swords, tips meeting at honor point, to represent the attributes of courage, ingenuity, and perseverance. AD ALTA, the unit motto, is Latin for "To The Heights."
Originally constituted as the 13th Motor Transport Command in the Regular Army on 18 October 1927, the 73rd Ordnance Battalion has a history that includes numerous redesignations during its first few years of service. In 1936 it was redesignated as HHC, 1st Battalion, 37th Quartermaster Regiment, and four years later it became HHHC, 73rd Quartermaster Battalion and was activated on 9 June 1941 at Fort Lewis, Washington. Over a four-month stretch (April to August) of 1942 it was redesignated twice (HHD, 73rd Quartermaster Medium Maintenance Battalion and HHD, 73rd Ordnance Medium Maintenance Battalion.
Following a brief inactivation, it was reactivated in December 1948 in Germany and redesignated as HHC, 73rd Armored Ordnance Maintenance Battalion, but was in activated on 20 July 1950. Redesignated as the 73rd Ordnance Battalion on 14 February 1957 and reactivated on 1 March 1957 at Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos), the unit was subsequently inactivated on 25 August 1961 at Fort Carson in Colorado. Twenty-five years later, it was transferred to the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (31 October 1986) and organized at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. It was inactivated from 6 June 1990 until 1 October 1994 when it was activated at Fort Gordon in Georgia, where it served for twenty years until it was relocated to Eglin Air Force Base. (Fort Gordon was redesignated as Fort Eisenhower in October 2023.)
Today, the Battalion has Ordnance Training Detachments at Fort Eisenhower (formerly named Fort Benning) and Fort Sill, with other units conducting advanced training at Eglin AFB, Fort Gregg-Adams (formerly named Fort Lee), Fort Walker (formerly named Fort A.P. Hill), and Fort Leonard Wood.