The 82nd Airborne Division, 1st Brigade Combat Team’s organizational flash and oval—the latter technically known as Airborne background trimming—were both approved for wear on 8 March 2006.
The flash—an embroidered, shield-shaped insignia with a semi-circular bottom—is worn on the stiffener of the maroon beret that the Army authorized for wear by Airborne-designated units in 1981. The oval is also worn by members of Airborne-designated units, but only by personnel who have earned a Parachutist and/or Air Assault badge.
Guidance on the wear and placement of the flash and oval, including device placement on the flash, is found in the January 2021 edition of DA PAM 670-1:
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Headquarters, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division was originally constituted as the Headquarters Troop, 82nd Division in the National Army on 5 August 1917. It has undergone several minor reorganizations and redesignations since that time, and from 1964 until 2006 it served as the HQ and HQ Company for the Division’s 1st Brigade. With the Army’s transition to a modular organizational system, its Headquarters was given its current designation, with its Headquarters Company continuing with a separate lineage.
Since its activation over 100 years ago, the Brigade has served in numerous campaigns, most notably three in World War I and a half-dozen in World War, earning two Arrowhead devices for participation Assault landings at Normandy and in the Rhineland campaigns.
Although the Brigade was not deployed to Korea or Vietnam, it did take part in Operation Power Pack in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and was part of the Airborne assault that led the way in Operation Just Cause, the Armed Forces Expedition that culminated in the arrest and subsequent conviction of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega.
In the Middle East, the Brigade fought in two campaigns during the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991, and although its official campaign credits for the Global War on Terrorism are yet to be determined, its numerous deployments to Afghanistan over the past two decades have resulted in its HQ and/or HQ company being tapped for four Meritorious Unit Commendations, the most recent for service between July 2017 and March 2018. And in 2019, the Brigade made history while assigned as the Army’s “Immediate Response Force” by taking off from Fort Bragg for Iraq within 18 hours of the deployment notice in response to the New Year’s Eve attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad carried out by Kata'ib Hezbollah militia—the first deployment of an Army Immediate Response Force unit since the invasion of Panama in 1989.