The 377th Field Artillery, 2nd Battalion oval, technically called Airborne background trimming, was originally approved 27 April 2004 for Battery B, 377th Field Artillery, which had had been given that designation on 15 October 2003 before being activated for the first time in more than sixteen years on 16 December 2003.
According to The Institute of Heraldry, the insignia was redesignated for the 2nd Battalion, 377th Field Artillery Regiment on 9 June 2005—but according to U.S. Army Center of Military History’s lineage and history for the unit, it still remained Battery B, 377th Field Artillery. What’s more it still remained a Battery on 1 October 2005, when the Army’s new convention of adding “Regiment” to the end of Regimental designations took place and the unit was now known as Battery B, 377th Field Artillery Regiment.
In fact, the unit would not become the 2nd Battalion, 377th Field Artillery Regiment until 16 November 2005, more than five months after the oval had been redesignated to that unit. While it isn’t unusual for an insignia to be redesignated for a unit that has yet to be renamed, this might be the only case where the unit had to be redesignated twice to match the designation of the insignia that had been approved for it almost half-a-year earlier.
One final note: the accuracy of this analysis depends, of course, on the accuracy of the records of both The Institute of Heraldry and the U.S. Army Center of Military History.
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