The 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Battalion oval—officially known as Airborne background trimming because it is worn beneath Parachutist and Air Assault badges—was approved on 31 August 1989.
Based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the 3rd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment
is assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. The Battalion first became part of the 101st Airborne Division in October 1986; it had originally been constituted in 1917 as Battery C, 320th Field Artillery, an element of the 82nd Division that eventually became the 82nd Airborne Division. As part of the 82nd Division’s 157th Artillery Brigade, the Battery fought in three Allied offensives during World War I before being demobilized in 1919.
Reorganized and redesignated as Battery C, 320th Field Artillery Battalion in February 1942, the unit fought in World War II and earned a Presidential Unit Citation for action at Sainte-Mère-Église. Unlike its counterparts Batteries A and B, this would mark the last combat the unit would see until the First Gulf War in 1990-1991.
By this time the Battery had been redesignated as 3rd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery and had been assigned to the 101st Airborne Division since October 1986. Its service during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm were later recognized with a Meritorious Unit Commendation. On 1 October 2005, the Battalion was given its current designation of 3rd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment.
Since the launch of the War on Terrorism, the Battalion’s outstanding performance over the course of several deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq has been recognized with numerous military decorations, including two Valorous Unit Awards—the first for service as part of Task Force Rakkasan in March 2002 in Afghanistan and the second for service in Iraq in 2007-2008.
It is also the recipient of four Meritorious Unit Commendations, the first for service during the opening months of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the most recent for action between November 2016 and July 2017 while assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division.