Also known as a unit crest or DUI, a Distinctive Unit Insignia is worn by all Soldiers (except General Officers) in units that have been
authorized to be issued the device. It is worn centered on the shoulder loops of the Army Green Service Uniform (AGSU) and the blue Army Service Uniform (Enlisted only) with the base of the insignia toward the outside shoulder seam. DUIs are not worn on the Dress variations of either uniform, however.
For Enlisted personnel, the insignia is centered on a shoulder loop by placing it an equal distance from the outside shoulder seam to the outside edge of the shoulder-loop button. Officers (except Generals) wearing grade insignia on the shoulder loops center the DUI by placing it an equal distance between the inside edge of the grade insignia and the outside edge of the button.
Full 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 Distinctive Unit Insignia (DUI) of the Special Troops Battalion, 81st Armored Brigade was approved on 27 February 2007. A cursory glance reveals that the two primary colors used in its design are red and yellow (gold), which symbolize valor and sacrifice and excellence and attendant higher honors respectively. They are also coloreds closely associated with Armored units and heraldry.
In the center, a pale (vertical column) that is betressed (similar to embattled) recalls a spine or backbone, a metaphor for courage and resolve that also invokes the Battalion’s motto of “Backbone of the Brigade.” The embattlements along the pale, also called crenelations, are also reminiscent of tank tracks and thus the movement capabilities of the 81st Armored Brigade’s Special Troops Battalion. The entire insignia is done with counterchanged, or alternating colors, that allude to unity and teamwork.
The upper third of the shield portion of the insignia, or chief, contains three mullets, or stars, that denote the Battalion’s three campaigns during World War II (Guadalcanal, Northern Solomons, and Luzon). A sea lion with raised sword, an image seen commonly in Philippine heraldry, here recalls the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation the Battalion was awarded for its service in the Pacific during the war, with the colors of the star being taken from the color of the ribbon. Beneath the sea lion is a wavy bar, a heraldic image for waves and water that here refers to the tropical waves found in the Southeast Asia area of operations during WWII.
Bookending the sea lion is a palm frond on viewer’s left and a scimitar on the right; together, they are a reference to the unit’s participation Operation Iraqi Freedom and the liberation of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the First Persian Gulf War in 1990 and 1991.