U.S. ARMY 173RD SUPPORT BATTALION BERET FLASH AND/OR OVAL

The 173rd Support Battalion (Airborne), also referred to as the 173rd Brigade Support Battalion (Airborne), was originally constituted on 26 March 1963 in the Regular Army and was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade. It deployed in support of the Brigade in May 1965 and eventually took part in fifteen campaigns and in Operation Junction City, the only Airborne combat operation of the conflict. Over the course of its nearly seven-year deployment, the Battalion earned a Presidential Unit Citation and two Meritorious Unit Commendations, as well a Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm and an ROV Civil Action Honor Medal, First Class.

Both the Brigade and the Battalion were inactivated in 1972. Following the Brigade’s reactivation in 2000, several Logistics Companies were assigned to the Brigade and were used as the basis of a reorganized 173rd Support Battalion when it was reactivated on 16 March 2005—just eight days before it began a deployment lasting nearly a year in Kandahar, Afghanistan in support of Combined Task Force Bayonet.

For its outstanding service between May 2007 and March 2013, the 173rd Support Battalion was recognized with three Meritorious Unit Commendation, and its individual Companies have been cited nearly a dozen times for individual MUCs, with D and G Companies being tapped for two apiece and E and F Companies each selected three times for the honor. And for service while assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment between June and November 2007, F Company was also awarded a Presidential Unit Citation in 2013.

As of 2021, the 173rd Brigade Support Battalion (Airborne) is still assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade—or is that the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team?

Both the Web page for the 173rd Brigade at the U.S. Army Center of Military History (COMH) and the official “Sky Soldiers” Web site agree that the unit was transformed into an Airborne Brigade Combat Team in 2006. But the “Sky Soldiers” page proclaims that “Upon returning to Italy in 2013, the Brigade was redesignated as the 173rd Airborne Brigade,” while the U.S. COMH says that Headquarters, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team was reorganized and redesignated 16 September 2015 as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 173d Airborne Brigade Combat Team.