A black knife on a red arrowhead, both with a gold outline, serves as insignia for both the Combat Service Identification Badge (CSIB) and the Shoulder Sleeve Insignia for personnel in the United States Army Special Operations Command and in three of its subordinate units: the 4th and 8th Psychological Operations Groups and the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta. The knife reflects the unconventional warfare tactics frequently employed in special operations, while the arrowhead is homage to the survival and tactical skills employed by Native Americans and adopted by Soldiers in Special Operations.
The 4th Psychological Operations Group was activated 1 December 1967 in Vietnam and took part in eleven named campaigns before its inactivation in October 1971 at Fort Lewis, Washington. It was activated again in September 1972.
In 2010, the Army changed the name of the Psychological Operations command to Military Information Support Operations (MISO) and the 4th was redesignated as a Military Information Support Group, and in August 2011 the 8th Military Information Support Group was activated. But the MISO designation was never very popular with Soldiers, and in 2014 both the 4th and 8th was designated as Psychological Operations Groups—but the name of the branch remained MISO.
The Army decided to revert the name of the command back to Psychological Operations in November 2017, a move that was seemingly ignored by Army-related publications such S
tars & Stripes and the online military news aggregator Military.com. (You can confirm the November 2017 name change was real and not itself a PSYOP by doing a search for the article "The Army's psychological operations community is getting its name back" dated 6 November 2017 and published by the
Army Times.)
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Special Operations Command Patch (SSI)
Special Operations Command Unit Crest (DUI)
Special Operations Command Beret Flash and Oval
Special Operations Command Combat Service ID Badge (CSIB)