Origin
An article in the Army Times dated 16 March 1981 featured a picture of an officer holding a set of Air Assault wings about a foot wide and included the paragraph below:
"Badge Designer: When he designed a badge for the 101st Abn Div in Vietnam in 1971, Maj. Jack R. Rickman thought that was the end of a project assigned by the division operations officer. Years later he recognized his design as the Air Assault Badge, which the Army adopted officially in January 1978. Rickman, who will retire from the Army in April, never earned the badge himself."
The design was influenced by the Parachutist Badge worn when the division was on jump status, as well as the Glider Badge worn by glider units during World War II. Charles Bloodworth, a pathfinder officer in the 101st during the early 1970s, wrote, "Locally designed and fabricated, the badge was deliberately crafted to mimic the glider wings of WWII. The nose of the Huey took the place of the glider body, and the horizontal rotor blade was the spitting image of the glider wing."
When the 101st returned from Vietnam to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the 173rd Airborne Brigade was inactivated and its assets used to form the division's 3rd Brigade, which was on jump status. The remainder of the division was organized as Airmobile. In February 1974, Major General Sidney B. Berry, Commanding General, signed Division General Order 179 authorizing the wear of the Airmobile Badge. Concurrently it was announced that the 3rd Brigade would terminate its jump status effective 1 April 1974, the same date on which the Airmobile Badge would be authorized.
Bloodworth describes the transition of the post-war division to fully Air Assault and the adoption of the Air Assault Badge at this link.
Read more about this topic: Air Assault Badge
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other.”
—Neal Cassady (1926–1968)