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 (ASU, 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.
The 36th Artillery Group’s Distinctive Unit Insignia was approved on 24 June 1968. It features an arrowhead superimposed on a gun stone (black circle), denoting ancient projectile weapons and symbolizing the basic concept of the Field Artillery mission. An arrowhead surrounding a fleur-de-lis and battle-ax head are allusions to the Group’s two Arrowhead device earned during World War II for taking part in planned assault landings in France and Italy, respectively. "Powerful And Swift" describes both the unit's capabilities as a whole and the attributes of its weaponry.
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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Headquarters and Headquarters Battery (HHB), 36th Field Artillery Group was created from the HHB, 36th Field Artillery Regiment when it was broken up on 5 March 1944. The HHB of the Group was inactivated on 4 April 1946 at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, then reactivated on 1 April 1951 in Germany. Redesignated as HHB, 36th Artillery Group in June 1958, the unit would be inactivated on 30 April 1972 in Germany.
There can be some confusion regarding this insignia due in part to the Army’s redesignation of Field Artillery units as simply “Artillery” with the introduction of the Combat Arms Regiment System; as you can see in the previous paragraph, this unit was at one time a “Field Artillery Group” and then just “Artillery Group,” and a search for the former usually yields images of the insignia of the 36th Field Artillery Regiment. The unit’s lineage from the 36th Field Artillery Regiment complicates things a bit further because both were stationed in Germany from the 1950s until the Group’s inactivation in 1972.