The design of the Shoulder Sleeve Insignia (unit patch) of the Maryland Army National Guard (ARNG) Element, Joint Force Headquarters (HQ) is essentially the Maryland State Flag placed inside a circle with a black field and gold trimming. This in turn was more or less the coat of arms of George Calvert, with yellow and black being his paternal heraldic colors and the other two quarters of red and white crosses being the colors of Calvert’s mother, Alicia Crossland. Yellow and black has heavily associated with the state, however, and understandably so—George Calvert’s title was First Baron Baltimore.
Maryland was a heavily divided state during the Civil War, and those choosing to fight for the South were loathe to carry the state colors of yellow and black—so they chose the Crossland colors and arms instead. When the time for reconciliation came at war’s end, the suggestion was put forth to combine the two designs into one flag (as stated earlier, this was more or less Calvert’s coat of arms), an idea that led to the flag being flown as early as the 1880s before it was finally adopted as the official banner of the state in 1904.
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Maryland ARNG Element, Joint Force HQ Unit Crest (DUI)Also called a unit patch, this insignia was designated for the Maryland ARNG Element, Joint Force HQ on 1 October 2003. It previously had been designated for the HQ and HQ Detachment, Maryland National Guard in March 1949, and from 1983 to 2003 it was designated for HQ, State Area Command, Maryland ARNG.