Represented by the 1st Battalion, an element of the 30th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, the 206th Field Artillery Regiment was originally organized as the 141st Machine Gun Battalion in the Arkansas National Guard from existing units and mustered into Federal service between 27 September and 18 October 1917 at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. Assigned to the 39th Division, the Battalion was redesignated as the 141st Antiaircaft Machine Gun Battalion on 2 October 1918. Because the Division was designated as a source for replacement troops, the Battalion was awarded a World War I campaign streamer that did not have the inscription of a particular battle or campaign.
The Battalion was reorganized and redesignated in the Arkansas National Guard as the 206th Artillery in the Coast Artillery Corps on 24 November 1923, the redesignated as the 206th Coast Artillery about a half year later (April 1924). After being inducted into Federal service on 6 January 1941, the Regiment fought in the Aleutian Islands campaign before being broken up, but its component units and others in its lineage did earn the Regiment credit for the Rhineland and Central Europe campaigns.
After a considerable number of inactivations, redesignations, reorganizations, reconstitutions of related units, the HQ and HQ Battery, 206th Coast Artillery was consolidated in June 1959 with two Field Artillery Battalions (437th and 445th) and the 326th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion to form the 206th Artillery, a parent regiment in the Combat Arms Regimental System (CARS); the number and designation of its component battalions would be changed throughout the 1960s, and in 1972 it was redesignated as the 206th Field Artillery. In June 1989, it was withdrawn from CARS and reorganized in the U.S. Army Regimental System; in 1990-1991 it deployed in support of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and earned credit for all three Southwest Asia campaigns.
In 1996, the Regiment was reorganized to consist of a single battalion, the 1st. After being called into Federal service in 2004 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Regiment was reorganized on 1 September 2005 to specify that the 1st Battalion was an element of the 29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, and the following month the Regiment was renamed the 206th Field Artillery Battalion. Since the 2004 call-up, the Regiment has taken part in three campaigns in the War On Terrorism, all in Iraq, and earned a Meritorious Unit Commendation for its 2004-2005 deployment.
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The 206th Field Artillery Regiment Distinctive Unit Insignia (DUI), or unit crest, features a red and blue shield with an escarbuncle (eight radiating spokes, with four forming a cross and the other four a saltire, or “X” shape) in the center and a scroll attached at the bottom containing an inscription of the unit motto, “Never Give Up.” Red and blue are used for the shield because they were the colors used for Machine Gun Battalions during World War I. (Scarlet, or red, is also used for Artillery.) The escarbuncle is from the coat of arms of Chaumont, a major town in the French Department of Haute-Marne, site of the 141st Machine Gun Battalion’s deployment during World War I.
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. DUIs are not worn on the Dress variations of either uniform, however.