4th Battalion 23rd Infantry Regiment Tomahawks Scroll Patch Hook Backed

The 23rd Infantry picked up the name Tomahawks in Korea, and the 4th Battalion carried it into Vietnam, where it switched from foot infantry to mechanized in 1967. The battalion was designated the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry on 1 July 1963 in Alaska, under the 172nd Infantry Brigade. In January 1966 it was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division, the Tropic Lightning, and by late April it was ashore in Vietnam near Vung Tau. For most of the next five years Cu Chi base camp was home. The name on this scroll is the one the men used for themselves.

Operating out of Cu Chi, with stretches at Tay Ninh and Bien Hoa, the Tomahawks helped open Operation Junction City in February 1967. When the Tet Offensive broke in 1968, the battalion was pulled out of field operations and sent into Saigon. Its colors carry twelve Vietnam campaigns, and it was inactivated at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, on 5 June 1972. The battalion came back in Alaska with the 172nd, served with the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis from 1983 to 1990, and returned to the 172nd in 2004. In 2007 it was activated at Fort Lewis under the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, a Stryker brigade, and in 2010 it was reflagged into the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

This is a scroll patch, the curved tab worn above a unit patch. It is black twill with a gold border and gold block lettering, TOMAHAWKS across the top arch. The left tail reads 4th BATT and the right tail reads 23rd I.N.F., so the battalion and regiment sit on either end of the nickname. Black and gold keeps it subdued enough for a field jacket. It measures 4 by 1.5 inches with a cut edge and a hook backing that attaches to a loop panel.

The 23rd Infantry's lineage goes back to 1861, through the Indian Wars, the Philippines and both World Wars with the 2nd Division. The 4th Battalion added its own chapter in the rice paddies and rubber around Cu Chi, first on foot and then in tracks. Men who rode with the Tomahawks in 1968 and soldiers who rode Strykers with them forty years later wore the same name. That continuity is what a scroll like this carries.

Mount it above a 25th Infantry Division patch in a shadow box, or press it onto the loop panel of a range bag or backpack. It makes a good gift for a 4-23 veteran headed to a Tomahawks reunion. Short, plain and easy to recognize.