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.
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.
The 305th Regiment Distinctive Unit Insignia was first approved for the 305th Regiment Infantry, Organized Reserves on 1 July 1926. It was amended twice—once to remove “Organized Corps” from the designation and another time to revise the description—before it was given its current designation for the 305th Regiment. The insignia consists solely of four bendlets taken from the Regiment’s coat of arms representing rivers in France (Vesle, Aisne, Aire and Meuse) on a black oak leaf. “Missing” from the unit crest are two items seen on the coat of arms—a devil representing the Chateau-de-Diale and an oak tree for the Argonne—and the Regiment’s motto of “Second To None.”
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The 305th Regiment was first constituted in the National Army as the 305th Infantry and assigned to the 77th Division on 5 August 1917. Paired with the 306th Infantry to form the 153rd Infantry Brigade, 77th Division, the Regiment was credited with fighting in four campaigns before the war drew to an end. In 1919, the Regiment returned to the site of its organization, Camp Upton, to be demobilized.
Reconstituted in the Organized Reserves with the same name and again assigned to the 77th Division, the 305th Infantry was deployed to the Asiatic-Pacific Theater where it earned three battle honors (Western Pacific, Leyte, and Ryukyus campaigns), with two of the campaign streamers augmented with Arrowheads denoting participation in an Assault landing. It was also tapped for a Philippine Presidential Unit Citation, and its 1st and 3rd Battalions were individually chosen for Presidential Unit Citations for their for actions in the liberation of the Philippine Islands. The Regiment was inactivated in March 1946, but was activated just nine months later in the Organized Reserves (which became the Organized Reserve Corps in March 1948 and then the Army Reserve in 1952).
As a result of a reorganization making the unit a parent regiment in the Combat Arms Regimental System (CARS), the 305th’s units were organized as elements of the 77th Infantry Division from 1 May 1959 to 30 December 1965 when the Regiment’s two Battalions (1st and 2nd) were inactivated and relieved from assignment to the 77th. An October 1999 reorganization saw the 350th Infantry removed from CARS, given its current designation of 305th Regiment, assigned three Battalions (1st, 2nd, 3rd) that were designated as elements of the 87th Division (Training Support), and all those Battalions allotted to the Regular Army.
The Regiment was again reorganized in December 2007 as a parent regiment in the United States Army Regimental System and its Battalions relieved from assignment to the 87th Division; a subsequent reorganization in 2012 reduce the Regiment’s Battalions to just two (1st and 2nd). As of As of February 2021, both Battalions are assigned to the 177th Armored Brigade, with the 1st designated as an Infantry unit and the 2nd as Field Artillery.