The red shield of the 84th Field Artillery Regiment Distinctive Unit Insignia, also known as a unit crest or DUI, denotes the unit as part of the Artillery branch of the Army. A broad saltire (X shape) is taken from the Alabama state flag, the state in which the Regiment was first organized. The winged spur in the middle indicates that the unit was mounted. “Performance Above All” highlights the Regiment’s commitment to excellence and dedication to the artillerist’s craft.
Originally approved on 3 November 1936, the insignia was redesignated on 12 November 1940 for the 84th Field Artillery Battalion; on 28 October 1958 for the 84th Artillery Regiment; and on 1 September 1971 for the 84th Field Artillery Regiment.
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The 84th Field Artillery Regiment was constituted in the National Army in the waning days of World War I—16 September 1918, to be precise—and was only partially organized at Camp Sheridan in Alabama on 3 October 1918. Demobilized from December 1918 to March 1930, the Regiment was reconstituted in the Regular Army as the 84th Field Artillery. It was redesignated as the 84th Field Artillery Battalion on 1 October 1940 and assigned to the 9th Infantry Division. It would serve with the 9th in eight World War II campaigns, earning a pair of Presidential Unit Citations and a Belgian Fourragere 1940 for being cited twice in the Order of the Day of the Belgian Army.
The 84th Field Artillery Battalion was activated during the Korean War, but did not see action during that conflict. It was subsequently inactivated in December 1957 and relieved from assignment to the 9th Infantry Division, then made a parent regiment in the Combat Arms Regimental System (CARS), the 84th Artillery, in 1959. Its units would fight in eight campaigns in Vietnam before it was redesignated as the 84th Field Artillery on 1 September 1971. It would be withdrawn from CARS in 1986 and reorganized and redesignated in 1986 under the U.S. Army Regimental System.
As it battalions were gradually inactivated over the next twenty years, the 84th Field Artillery existed only on paper by 2005, the year the 1st Battalion was redesignated as the 1st Battalion, 84th Field Artillery Regiment. Assigned to the 170th Infantry Brigade in 2009, the Battalion’s Battery B earned a Meritorious Unit Commendation for service between December 2010 and June 2011; the following year, the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery was also selected for a Meritorious Unit Commendation.
The 1st Battalion, 84th Field Artillery Regiment was inactivated in October 2012 as part of the concurrent inactivation of its parent company, the 170th Infantry Brigade.