“Prairie Steel,” the unit motto of the 734th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion displayed at the base of its Distinctive Unit Insignia, is a reference to the organization’s former designation as a Transportation unit, with it metal and steel vehicles serving as the modern-day equivalent of the ox-towed Conestoga wagons, displayed in the top portion of the insignia, that were the primary mode of transportation of settlers in search of new opportunities in the American West and Midwest. Three brick-red rays incorporate the primary branch color or the Transportation Corps and symbolize the convergence point three trails—Oregon, California, and Mormon—in Kearney, Nebraska, one-time home of the unit. The alternating golden rays represents the boundless opportunity pioneers found in the new territories, whose prairies are alluded to with the green area.
The 734th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion Distinctive Unit Insignia, commonly called a unit crest or DUI, was originally approved for the 734th Transportation Battalion on 7 February 2001, seven months before the unit with that name was created (see below). It was redesignated effective 1 September 2016 for the 734th Support Battalion and today is worn by personnel in the 734th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion.
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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The 734th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion (CSSB) was originally organized as Company A, 2nd Infantry in the Nebraska National Guard on 19 August 1892. By the time it arrived in France, it had become Battery E, 127th Field Artillery, an element of the 34th Division; it received an uninscribed World War I campaign streamer because the 34th Division ceased to function as a Division after it was broken up and its personnel used as replacements for units already in combat.
More redesignations and reorganizations followed over the next two decades, leading to its designation as the 136th Quartermaster Truck Company during its service in World War II. In all, it took part in five campaigns in the European Theater before returning to the U.S. and inactivation in December 1945. Indeed, numerous conversions, reorganizations, consolidations, redesignations was the unit’s story over the following fifty years, leading up to its conversion and redesignation from HHC, 1st Battalion, 195th Armor to the HHD, 734th Transportation Battalion on 1 September 2001. Although the 734th Transportation Battalion did not received any campaign-participation credits, its HHD was tapped for a Meritorious Unit Commendation in 2009 for service between August 2006 and August 2007. It was redesignated as the 734th Support Battalion in September 2016.
Now known as the 734th CSSB, the unit’s most recent deployment came in 2021-2022 when nearly six dozen of its troops were deployed to Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar to assist in the processing of Afghan refugees leaving the country, presumably for the United States. As of Autumn 2023, the Battalion remains an active unit in the Nebraska Army National Guard and is headquartered in Kearney, Nebraska.