181st Infantry Brigade (United States)

181st Infantry Brigade
Shoulder sleeve insignia
Active	5 August 1917 – 19 November 1945 25 January 1947 – 17 May 1954 17 April 1956 – 1 May 1959 1 April 1963 – 31 December 1965 1 December 2006 – present
Country	United States
Branch	Army Reserve
Type	Infantry
Role	Training
Size	Brigade
Part of	1st Army
Garrison/HQ	Fort McCoy, Wisconsin
Nickname(s)	Eagle Brigade
Motto(s)	Docere Bellum Et Pax Pacis "To Win War and Peace"
Colors	Black & Red
Anniversaries	5 August 1917
Decorations	Army Superior Unit Award
Battle honours	World War I World War II
Commanders
Current commander	Colonel James "Brooks" Schultze
Notable commanders	Major Oscar F. Miller Medal of Honor Colonel Jeffrey J. Kulp Colonel Shawn Klawunder
Insignia
Distinctive unit insignia
Designated but not authorized shoulder sleeve insignia

The 181st Infantry Brigade is an infantry brigade of the United States Army based at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. As an Active Component/Reserve Component (AC/RC) brigade, the unit serves primarily in a training role for other units of the US armed forces. The brigade is subordinate to the First United States Army, headquartered at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois. It has ten subordinate battalions.

The unit is responsible for training selected United States Army Reserve and Army National Guard units in the Central-Northern United States. The unit was formerly designated as 2nd Brigade, 63rd Infantry Division. The brigade was redesignated and re-missioned several times: such as in 1999, when the 181st was merged with the 2nd Brigade, 85th Division and carried that name and lineage from October 1993 until December 2006. The 181st Infantry Brigade currently falls under the 1st Army's Division West, headquartered at Fort Hood, Texas.

During World War I, infantry brigades were purely tactical formations. Administrative and logistical functions were conducted by the division headquarters.

With the demise of the Square Division in favor of the Triangular division, the now surplus brigade headquarters were converted into either the divisional headquarters company or the division's reconnaissance troop. The 181st was selected to transform into the 91st Infantry Division's reconnaissance troop.

During World War I, the 181st Infantry Brigade was constituted 5 August 1917 in the National Army at Camp Lewis, Washington as a subordinate unit of the 91st Infantry Division. The Brigade was composed of 8,134 personnel organized in a Headquarters Detachment with 5 Officers and 18 Enlisted Soldiers, the 361st and 362nd Infantry Regiments each with 3,755 Officers and Enlisted Soldiers, and the 347th Machine Gun Battalion with 581 Officers and Enlisted Soldiers. The 181st Infantry Brigade trained for 10 months at Camp Lewis prior to being deployed to France in August 1918. After the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and the liberation of France, the Brigade was sent to assist the British with quelling the German Army’s final gasps at Ypres-Lys until the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918, which ended World War I. After four months of peacekeeping operations in liberated Belgium, the Brigade returned to the United States and arrived at the port of New York on 2 April 1919 on the U.S.S. Orizaba.