U.S. ARMY WILLIAM BEAUMONT ARMY MEDICAL CENTER UNIT CREST (DUI)

The William Beaumont Army Medical Center was originally known as the William Beaumont General Hospital, which comprised over 40 buildings and more than 200 beds when it opened in July 1921. The hospital was the latest in a series of expanding medical facilities in the El Paso area and at Fort Bliss, and continued to operate under its original designation until 1972 and the opening of the William Beaumont Army Medical Center. In 2013, ground was broken on a state-of-the-art medical facility slated with an estimated completion date of 2016, but numerous delays and contractual disputes pushed back the scheduled opening until spring of 2021; it officially opened on 11 July 2021. The new 135-bed facility comprises six buildings covering 1.1 million square feet and has been referred to by Army officials as the most technologically advanced medical center in the U.S. Department of Defense.

Distinctive Unit Insignias are worn by all Soldiers (except General Officers) in units that have been authorized to be issued the device. 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.
Approved for the William Beaumont General Hospital on 31 December 1969, this Distinctive Unit Insignia (unit crest) was redesignated for the William Beaumont Army Medical Center on 15 August 1973. Fittingly, it highlights some of the achievements of Dr. William Beaumont, a 19th-century U.S. Army Surgeon who was acclaimed as the “Father of Gastric Physiology.”

A northward-pointing fleur-de-lis recalls Beaumont’s 1820 assignment to Fort Mackinac in Michigan and his subsequent treatment of a French-Canadian whose stomach wound would not close, a turn of events which Beaumont capitalized on by using it was a way to observe how the human stomach works: this is symbolized by the circular “window” at the center of the cross, and the acclaim Beaumont enjoyed because of this work is denoted by the gold rays behind the cross. El Paso, home of the Center, is symbolized the cross’ vertical arm passing between the stylized mountains and terminating at the blue wave of the Rio Grande.