The 394th Regiment Distinctive Unit Insignia, also called a DUI or unit crest, was originally approved for the 394th Infantry Regiment, Organized Reserves on 29 November 1929. It was redesignated for the 394th Regiment on 27 April 1999.
Though constituted in July 1918 as the 394th Infantry and assigned to the 99th Division, the 394th Regiment was not even organized before it was demobilized after the signing of the Armistice ended fighting in World War I. It was reconstituted on 24 June 1921 as the 394th Infantry and again assigned to the 99th Division (redesignated as the 99th Infantry Division after June 1942). Deployed to the European Theater during the Second World War, the Regiment was the recipient of a Belgian Fourragere 1940 for its two citations in the Order of the Day of the Belgium Army (for action at the Siegfried Line and Elsenborn Crest), while the 1st Battalion was cited individually for its service during the Battle of the Bulge and was tapped for a Presidential Unit Citation.
The Regiment remained allotted to the Organized Reserves when it was inactivated on 29 September 1945 as well as when that organization was redesignated as the Organized Reserve Corps (March 1948) and the Army Reserve (July 1952). It would remain inactive for more than a half-century, a period of dormancy that continued even as it was relieved from assignment to the 99th Infantry Division on 29 October 1998.
Redesignated as the 394th Regiment on 17 October 1999, the Regiment was also reorganized to comprise the 1st Battalion—a unit that was simultaneously named an element of the 75th Division (Training Support) and allocated to the Regular Army. The Regiment’s number of Battalion has varied over the two-plus decades since its redesignation, but its mission—to train newly enlisted Soldiers—has remained the same. As of May 2021, the Regiment’s single Battalion—the 394th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion—has been assigned to the 561st Regional Support, 451st Expeditionary Sustainment Command. Headquartered in Fremont, Nebraska, the 394th consists of eight companies, all of which except one are also based in Nebraska.
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The blue shield that is the basis of the 394th Regiment DUI is a nod to the unit’s origins as an Infantry unit (197th Brigade, 99th Division). It was not only headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but all the personnel of the original unit came from Pennsylvania. A reversed “pairle” (upside-down “Y”) alludes to the Monongahela and Alleghany Rivers flowing into the Ohio at the city of Pittsburgh. AUDAX ET CAUTUS is the unit motto, a Latin phrase that translates into English as "Bold And Wary."
Distinctive Unit Insignias are worn by all Soldiers (except General Officers) in units that have been authorized to be issued the device. It is worn centered on the shoulder loops of the Army Green Service Uniform (AGSU) and the blue Army Service Uniform (ASU, Enlisted only) with the base of the insignia toward the outside shoulder seam. Full guidance on wear of the DUI is found in DA Pamphlet 670-1, Section 21-22, "Distinctive unit insignia."