Posted 8 years ago
BMichael
(6 items)
In the late 1920s the US Army's Office of the Adjutant General tentatively approved this Distinctive Unit Insignia for the District of Columbia National Guard. The DUI represented the hatchet and cherry tree story from the 1800 biography of George Washington by Mason Locke Weems ("Parson" Weems). Two versions were approved, with red cherries for color-bearing units, and yellow cherries for non-color-bearing units.
The story, however, was apocryphal and the design was eventually replaced with the Capitol Dome which was also the DUI for the 29th Division (at the time the CG, DCNG was also CG, 29th Division). That DUI was produced with several different torse (wreath) colors for different elements of the DC National Guard and the 29th Division.
The second image is the present DCNG DUI. The motto, "Capitol Guardians," was added in 1972 during one of the Congressional debates over Statehood for the District of Columbia and the argument as to who would control the DC National Guard. But that's another story.
The hatchet and cheery tree DUI was never produced. In the 1980s I had a quantity professionally manufactured.
