The 143rd Field Artillery Regiment unit crest, officially called a Distinctive Unit Insignia (DUI), was approved for the 143rd Field Artillery Regiment on 18 March 1925. Between that date and 1972, it was redesignated four times, most recently for the unit’s official current designation—143rd Field Artillery Regiment, California Army National Guard—on 9 August 1972.
A gold sun on the insignia is taken from the 40th Division, an organization long associated with the Battalion. The rattlesnake stands for service on the Mexican Border before World War I, and he fleur-de-lis is symbolic of service in France during World War I. FACTA NON VERBA, the unit motto, means “Deeds Not Words.”
Full guidance on wear of the DUI is found in DA Pamphlet 670-1, Section 21-22, "Distinctive unit insignia" and 21–3(d) and (e), "Beret" and "Garrison Cap," respectively.
The 143rd Field Artillery Regiment is an organization in the California Army National Guard that, in 2020, consists solely of the 1st Battalion, which has over a half-dozen unit locations in Central and Northern California. Its Federal mission is to use its firepower in direct support of the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, California Army National Guard, while it state mandate is to provide trained and disciplined forces for domestic emergencies or as otherwise provided by state law.
Originally formed on 20 December 1912 in the California National Guard as the 1st Battalion of Field Artillery, the Regiment first received its numerical designation after being drafted into Federal service for World War I, when it was reorganized and redesignated as the 143rd Field Artillery. It was assigned to the 40th Division, which was broken up to become a replacement division providing replacement troops for front-line units; the 40th and its subordinate units were awarded an uninscribed World War I streamer to recognize this valuable contribution toward Allied victory.
During World War II, the 143rd Field Artillery was broken up, with its HQ and 1st Battalion becoming the 143rd Field Artillery Battalion and the 2nd Battalion redesignated as the 164th Field Artillery Battalion. While the two Battalions earned the Regiment credit for participation in four campaigns in the Asiatic-Pacific, there were no military decorations bestowed on the Regiment as a whole. However, several individual batteries in these Battalions were credited with between one and five additional campaigns, and were also the recipients of a Philippine Presidential Unit Citation; the details are found in the Army Lineage Series book
Field Artillery Part 2, found here. Similarly, the Regiment as a whole earned no campaign participation credits for the Korean War, but Battery C, 1st Battalion did take part in and was credited with four campaigns in that conflict.
The 143rd Field Artillery would undergo several reorganizations in the next few decades, with the most notable being the “reforming” of the Regiment through the consolidation of former units (the 143rd and 164th Field Artillery Battalions) with several other units to form the 143rd Artillery, a regiment in the Combat Arms Regimental System. It would be removed from that system in 1988 and reorganized in the U.S. Army Regimental System, maintaining its long affiliation with the 40th Infantry Division even to this day: Its sole Battalion, the 1st, is assigned to the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 40th Infantry Division. But its most recent deployment, in 2018, was not in support of the 79th IBCT, but was instead to provide fixed-sites security and training of foreign Allied Soldiers on fire-support planning in the nations of Jordan, Qatar, and Bahrain.