5th Infantry Division:
The Red Diamond Division.

When the U.S. entered WW II, the 5th Division was assigned to
the Regular Army with Headquarters at Fort Custer, Michigan.
In September of 1941, part of the Division (the 1Oth Regiment)
was detached and sent to Iceland while the rest of the Division
was sent to Louisiana on maneuvers. The entire Division arrived
in Iceland in March of 1942 and then proceeded to England and
Northern Ireland for further training.

According to a letter written in December of 1918 by the
Division Chief of Staff, the shoulder patch was adapted from
a baggage marking that was placed on all 5th Division troop
baggage for ready indentification. This design was later used
on Division transport vehicles and had a "5" in the center but
was adopted as a shoulder patch without the numeral. In
addition, the "red diamond" was chosen to honor the (then)
Division commander who was from the Artillery branch (red is
the color for Artillery). The Ace of Diamonds was a well-known
trade name of a cloth dye with the slogan, "Diamond dye,
it never runs." The Red Diamond is also a well-known problem in
bridge building: it is made of two adjacent isosceles triangles
(a triangle that has two sides of equal length) which makes for
the greatest strength.

The 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) is a regular Army unit on
active duty with Headquarters at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Elements
of the Division fought along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in
South Vietnam although they did not arrive there until March of
1968.

The patch is the same as the WW II design except that it is
now merrowed.

Campaigns:
World War I
(St.-Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne,
Alsace 1918, Lorraine 1918)

World War II
(Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland,
Ardennes-Alsace, Central Europe),

Armed Forces Expeditions
(Panama).