OK sought to save Army unit’s famed patch

U.S. Rep. Mark Takai wants the Army to extend the special status granted previously to the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry Regiment to allow it to continue to wear its liberty torch unit patch.

Takai, a Hawaii Democrat, sent a letter Monday to acting Secretary of the Army Patrick Murphy asking what steps the service would take to “preserve the historical significance and autonomy” of the 100th Battalion, which is headquartered in Hawaii and remains the only combat arms unit in the Army Reserve.

Takai’s request comes at a time of budget cuts and fewer soldiers, and with the Army testing the use of National Guard and Army Reserve units to round out larger, active-duty brigades and divisions to maintain readiness.

Twenty-seven units were selected to be paired up under the “Associated Units” pilot program that’s starting this summer. In a few cases active-duty units will be associated with higher-level National Guard units.

As laid out by the Army, the Army Reserve’s 100th/442nd, headquartered in Hawaii, could lose some autonomy — and possibly its famed liberty torch shoulder patch — in its alignment with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team at Schofield Barracks.

The Army said the smaller units — in this case the 100th/442nd — would wear the shoulder patch of the larger units to which they are assigned, such as the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield, where soldiers wear the “Tropic Lightning” patch.

The 100th/442nd traces its lineage to the highly decorated Japanese-American soldiers who served during World War II, noted Takai, a lieutenant colonel in the Hawaii Army National Guard.

“They were ordinary men from working-class families, mainly from Hawaii, with later arrivals volunteering from barbed-wire-enclosed internment camps on the United States mainland,” Takai said in his letter.

With their unwavering loyalty in the face of racism, their valor and bravery in battle, and the communities they helped shape in postwar Hawaii, the 100th/442nd “takes great pride in its rich heritage,” Takai said.

The 100th, joined with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II, was given special permission by the Army in 1955 and 1956 to wear the 442nd liberty torch patch.

The unit, which has more than 400 soldiers, also won the right from the Army to keep its patch on a 2005 deployment to Iraq.

“This year marks the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor,” Takai said in his letter. “I imagine that the Army would want to do all in its power to pay homage to the battalion with the most exemplary combat record. I urge the Army to extend the special status that allows the battalion to wear the liberty torch patch.”