Important: Be aware that cancellation requests for bullion shoulder straps must be made within 24 hours of placing an order because of the substantial time investment required for the custom hand embroidery process.
Shoulder straps are authorized for wear on the Army Service Uniform to display grade insignia of all officers, both commissioned and Warrant. General officers wear straps with a blue-black velvet background, while all other officers wear straps featuring a background ribbon in the first-named color of their basic branch. The branch colors of the Finance Corps, Silver Gray (cable number 65008) and Golden Yellow (65001), were officially prescribed in 1920 when the Army separated the Pay Department from the Quartermaster Corps as authorized by the National Defense Act of 1920.
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On 14 June 1775, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution to raise six 81-man companies of expert riflemen, each comprised of a Captain, three Lieutenants, four Sergeants, four Corporals, sixty-eight privates, and a trumpeter or drummer. While the resolution mandated that all these men were “find their own arms and cloaths,” it did make provision for their pay, which led to another resolution just two days later establishing the office of that would disburse their remuneration: the Paymaster General.
Today, the United States Army Finance Corps celebrates that day—16 June 1775—as its traditional anniversary date. But it was not until the appointment of General Nathaniel Towson as Paymaster-General in 1821 and his reorganization of the Pay Department that it was recognized as an independent staff corps.
That independence was stripped away with the passage of the National Defense Act of 1912, which merged the Pay Department with two others, Subsistence and Quartermaster,4into the Quartermaster Corps. Although intended to reduce redundancies and yield cost savings, the system foisted clerical and administrative tasks upon officers and soldiers who previously had specialized in the fairly narrow fields of payroll and expense reimbursement. In 1920, the Pay Department was reinstituted as an independent, basic branch of the military under the new designation of Finance Department; Congress retitled it the Finance Corps in 1950
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