Often referred to as a unit crest or DUI for short, the Distinctive Unit Insignia of the 39th Field Artillery Regiment was approved on 21 February 1941. It features a phoenix rising to symbolize the reactivation and restoration of the unit following its reconstitution (but not reactivation) from demobilized status in on 1 October 1933. The Regiment was redesignated and reactivated on 1 October 1940, a little less than five months before the insignia was approved, as the 39th Field Artillery Battalion. The unit motto, CELERITAS IN CONFICIENDO, is Latin for “Speed In Action.”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.
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One of hundreds of Field Artillery units constituted on 5 July 1918, the 39th Field Artillery was assigned on the 13th Division and organized at Camp Lewis, Washington. Following its demobilization in 191, it would remain in limbo despite its 1933 reconstitution until it was reactivated in 1940 (see above). Serving with the 3rd Infantry Division, the Regiment would earn a dozen campaign streamers (out of sixteen campaigns in that theater) from action in the European-African-Middle Eastern Theater during World War II, four of them with a coveted Arrowhead device indicating the Regiment’s planned participation in an assault landing. The exceptional courage of the Regiment’s personnel was recognized with a Presidential Unit Citation, a French Croix de Guerre with Palm, and a French Fourragere.
The Regiment would continue to serve with the 3rd Infantry Division during the Korean War, taking part in eight campaigns and earning the Chryssoun Aristion Andrias (Greek Cross of Valor), the highest Greek military decoration at the time, and two Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citations. Redesignated as parent regiment 39th Artillery in the Combat Arms Regimental System in 1957 and released from assignment to the 3rd Infantry Division, the unit would fight in a half-dozen Vietnam War campaigns, the last combat it would see before the First Gulf War, where it participated in all three of that war’s campaigns.
A regiment in the U.S. Army Regimental System since 1987, the Regiment’s last remaining active Battalion, the 1st, was briefly designated as Battery A, 39th Field Artillery from 1996 to 2000, when it was redesignated as 1st Battalion, 39th Field Artillery and assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division. It earned a Presidential Unit Citation for its role during the invasion of Iraq before being inactivated in May 2006.