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According to the U.S. Army Center of Military History’s Branch Birthday page, the birthday of the Civil Affairs Branch is 17 August 1955. That means that ten days from now, on 17 August 2025, the branch will be 70 years old!
Below is a screenshot from a portion of that page:
We happen to have copies of each of the Department of the Army General Orders (AGO) mentioned above. Below are images of AGO 1955-51 (the branch’s original “birth certificate”), AGO 1959-36 (the branch’s name change document), and AGO 2006-29 (the branch’s expansion into the Regular Army (RA)).
Branch insignia and colors.
The civil affairs branch insignia and colors were approved on 1 June 1956. According to the Civil Affairs page of the Institute of Heraldry, “The globe indicates the worldwide areas of Civil Affairs operations. The torch is from the Statue of Liberty, a symbol associated with the spirit of the United States. It also represents the enlightened performance of duty. The scroll and sword depict the civil and military aspects of the organization’s mission. The insignia was authorized for wear by all personnel assigned to Regular Army Civil Affairs TOE units on 13 October 1961.”
The branch colors are purple piped with white. While the IOH page does not provide the meaning of those colors, a Google search of the meaning of heraldic colors on coats of arms reveals that purpure (purple) signifies justice, sovereignty, and regality, while argent (silver or white) signifies sincerity or peace. Given the history of civil affairs to that point in time, those colors seem fitting.
Branch school and facilities.
All civil affairs (CA) and military government (MG) training facilities were closed after World War II (WWII). A military government school reopened under the Provost Marshal General’s School at Camp Gordon, GA, on 15 January 1951 to train CA/MG Soldiers for the war in Korea. Following the creation of the CA/MG branch in the USAR in 1955 and its name change to CA in 1959, the CA school at Fort Gordon continued to train both Regular Army and USAR CA Soldiers for the Cold War and the war in Vietnam. In 1971, the CA School moved to Fort Bragg, NC, where it remains under the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (USAJFKSWCS). The branch proponent, according to AR 5-22, The Army Force Modernization Proponent System, is the CG of the U.S. Army Special Operations Center of Excellence at USAJFKSWCS.
The only visible remnant of the CA School at Fort Gordon that has been with the branch for much of its history is the Marquat Library, named after Major General William F. Marquat, a member of General Douglas MacArthur’s staff during WWII and the Chief of Civil Affairs and Military Government from 1952 to 1955. Since moving to USAJFKSWCS in 1971, it has served as the school library for all three branches trained there: CA, psychological operations (PO), and special forces (SF). For many years, the Marquat Library was located on the first floor and basement of Kennedy Hall, where the tiered conference room 151 is now situated, near the USAJFKSWCS mailroom and breezeway. It was relocated to Bank Hall in the summer of 1992, when the building was known as the New Academic Facility (NAF). It is now known as the Marquat Memorial Learning Resource Center Library and resides on the first floor of Clay Hall, where it continues to serve the students and faculty of the three branches.
It is noteworthy to mention that some elements of the CA branch are not taught at Fort Bragg. In 2019, USAJFKSWCS’s A Company, 5th Battalion, 1st Special Warfare Training Group (Airborne) and the 38B Advanced Individual Training (AIT) program moved to Fort Jackson, SC, to take advantage of AIT-appropriate training facilities that are not available at Fort Bragg. Also, the 800th Training Support Brigade of the 80th Training Command (The Army School System (TASS)) has USAR instructors in five TASS Training Centers located in California, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Virginia that train non-commissioned officers who reclassify into the 38B military occupational specialty (MOS) from other branches.
Branch strength today.
Today (7 August 2025), the Army’s CA branch has a total authorized strength of about 6,800 Soldiers. That breaks down to about 2,770 officers and 4,030 enlisted personnel across all three components. By component, this further breaks down to approximately 600 officers and 900 enlisted personnel in the Active Army, 70 officers and 30 enlisted personnel in the Army National Guard, and 2,100 officers and 3,100 enlisted personnel in the U.S. Army Reserve. Those numbers may fluctuate from year to year as unit structures change and units are activated or inactivated to meet evolving operational requirements.
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