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. 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.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Like many Artillery units formed just before the U.S. entry in the World War I, the 81st Field Artillery Regiment was originally constituted as the 23rd Cavalry in July 1916 and organized 21 June 1917 at Fort Ogelthorpe, Georgia with personnel transferred from the 11th Cavalry. On 3 November 1917, it was designated as the 81st Field Artillery. just five months later on 3 November 1917.
Assigned to the 8th Division in 1917, the 81st Field Artillery was awarded a World War I Victory streamer (minus campaign or battle inscription) for its contributions to the victory achieved by the American Expeditionary Force. It was inactivated in February 1922; it would not see a unit reactivated until 1940, when the 1st Battalion was activated at Fort Lewis, Washington on 1 July 1940. In December 1940, the unit was reorganized and redesignated as the 81st Field Artillery Battalion, and under this designation it earned three campaign streamers from the European Theater during World War II and another uninscribed streamer from the Asiatic-Pacific Theater.
The battalion would undergo numerous activations and reactivations following World War II, with a brief stint (1954 to 1957) as the 81st Airborne Field Artillery Battalion. It became a parent regiment in July 1959 when it was reorganized and redesignated as the 81st Artillery. By the time it was subsequently redesignated as the 81st Field Artillery in September 1971, two of its Battalions had been inactivated (though some were redesignated despite their inactive status), a fate that befell the remaining four Battalions over the next fifteen years.