The 203rd Personnel Services Battalion is a unit in the Regular Army that has been inactivated, deactivated, disbanded, redesignated, or reflagged. It was originally constituted on 25 March 1943 in the Army of the United States as Company A, 52nd Replacement Battalion and activated two months later on 25 May 1943 at Camp Sutton, North Carolina. It became the 203rd Replacement Company on 1 November 1943 and was subsequently inactivated at Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania on 20 October 1945, but not before earning an uninscribed World War II European-African-Middle Eastern Theater campaign streamer.
It would remain dormant for more than four decades until its redesignation on 16 March 1987 as the 203rd Personnel Services Company; it was concurrently allotted to the Regular Army and activated at Fort Richardson, Alaska. [Note: this is the history as published by the U.S. Center of Military History, which lists the unit as a Personnel Services Battalion but ends its lineage with the unit still classified as a Personnel Services Company.
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Also known as a unit crest or DUI, a Distinctive Unit Insignia is 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. DUIs are not worn on the Dress variations of either uniform, however.
In the 203rd Personnel Services Battalion Distinctive Unit Insignia, the dark blue section of the shield and scarlet background for the Battalion motto of “Prepare Preserve Protect” are the colors used for Personnel Services units. A polestar on the shield signifies guidance, leadership, and direction, while the chevronwise division of the shield connotes support and strength; the polestar is also an allusion to the North Star and the organization’s location in Alaska. The wavy lines are a heraldic fountain symbolizing water, and here highlight the unit’s baptism by fire in the Mediterranean region during the Second World War.
Enlisted personnel wear the insignia centered on a shoulder loop by placing it an equal distance from the outside shoulder seam to the outside edge of the shoulder-loop button. Officers (except Generals) wearing grade insignia on the shoulder loops center the DUI by placing it an equal distance between the inside edge of the grade insignia and the outside edge of the button.
More 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.