98th Division (Institutional Training) Unit Rings

98th Division (Institutional Training) Iroquois

Shoulder Sleeve Insignia

The 98th Division insignia consists of a shield in the shape of the Great seal of the State of New York, with the head of an Iroquois Indian Chief. The five feathers represent the five original Iroquois nations: the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Mohawk. The blue and orange-gold colors are those of the Dutch House of Nassau, the earliest settlers of New York State.

The 98th Division (Iroquois) was constituted on 23 July 1918 at Fort McClellan Alabama and was deactivated in November 1918. The Congress passed the National Defense Act of 1920 providing small active component force with substantial Reserve and National Guard augmentation.  The federal element was called Organized Reserve. A reservist of the period summarized the significance as follows, “Someone had a dream of salvaging something from the tremendous experience that the war had brought and had evolved a plan new to Americans of the Federal Reserve force.”

The 98th Division was officially established as part of the Organized Reserve on 24 June 24 1921 in New York. The 98th Infantry Division did not participate in any combat operations in World War II.  Upon arrival in Hawaii on 19 April 1944, the Division remained on security duty until the end of the war in the Pacific. The 98th became active in the Army Infantry Division and was organized on 15 September 1942. The Division set sail to Japan for occupation duty and arrived on 27 September 1945.  The Iroquois participated in Operation Olympic on 1 November 1945 and Operation Coronet on 1 March 1946.  In 1947 under the provision of the First Army General Order 152, the division was returned to reserve status.

In 1959, the 98th Division was designated a training division. In 1994 a further reorganization resulted in it being designated the 98th Division (Institutional Training). In late October 2004, the Division was deployed to Iraq to help train the Iraqi new Army. They were scheduled to provide command and control of advisory support teams as part of the Army’s new Foreign Army Training Assistance Command or FA-TRAC. The mission of the Division in Iraq is to conduct training for non-commissioned officer and officer education courses in conjunction with NATO’s training efforts and also conduct military skills courses and provide Basic Training support for the Iraqi National Guard.