Located at Fort Hood, Texas and assigned to the 89th Military Police Brigade, the 720th Military Police Battalion was constituted on 10 January 1942 in the Army of the United States and activated ten days later at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. During World War II, the Battalion was deployed to the Pacific Theater where it took part in three campaigns and earned a Philippine Presidential Unit Citation. During the Korean War, volunteers from two of its companies would serve in Korea and their service between 1950 and 1954 recognized with a Meritorious Unit Commendation.
From 1966 to 1972, the Battalion was a subordinate unit of the 89th Military Police Group in Vietnam, where it took part in an astonishing fourteen of the conflict’s seventeen named campaigns and earned three Meritorious Unit Commendations and a Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm. The unit would not be deployed into a combat zone again until the Southwest Asia (First Gulf War) conflict, where it would serve through all three campaigns and garner another Meritorious Unit Commendation. Elements of the Battalion also served in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia.
Returning to Southwest Asia in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, the Battalion earned two more Meritorious Unit Commendations for action between 2004 and 2007 as it carried out area security operations, escorted convoys, and managed detainee operations. In 2009, elements of the Battalion made their first deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, the first of four deployments made by Battalion companies or its Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment. And in 2013 the HHD would receive a Meritorious Unit Commendation for its 2011-2012 deployment to assist in building the Afghan National Police into a force capable of defending the nation from insurgents and criminals.
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Approved on 2 May 1952, the 720th Military Police Battalion Distinctive Unit Insignia, also called a unit crest, is designed almost exclusively with the Military Police branch colors of green and yellow (gold). A golden hand, seizing an upside-down “imp” (its pointed tail implies a malignant spirit or devil) symbolizes the restraining functions of the unit, to wit, keeping undesirable factions under control and unable to do harm. The mission is reinforced with the unit motto “Orderly Regulation.”