The 35th Division was organized 25 August 1917, at Camp Doniphan, Oklahoma, as a unit of the National Guard, with troops from Missouri and Kansas.

The marking was later stenciled onto signs identifying the whereabouts of division units, soldiers' helmets, and finally was made into a shoulder sleeve insignia when that usage was authorized.

Postwar, the wide variety of color combinations was done away with, and the insignia to be worn by all division personnel was simplified to consist of a white Santa Fe cross on a blue background with an olive drab border, although colored insignia continued in limited use in certain cases until the 1930s.

Within a blue circle 2 inches in diameter, 1/2-inch in width quadrated at 45 degrees to the lines of disk, a blue quadrated disk 1 1/8 inches in diameter, the inner ends of the quadrants rounded by arcs of 1/8-inch radius, all white lines 1/8-inch in width.

On 18 July 1917, the War Department directed the organization of the unit, now redesignated the 35th Division, and on 5 August, the National Guard was drafted into federal service.

Having undergone a number of command changes at multiple echelons and arms of service on short notice, the division was committed during the opening stages of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, 21 to 30 September.

During its combat service, the 35th Division spent ninety-two days in quiet sectors and five in active, advanced twelve and one-half kilometers against resistance, captured 781 prisoners, and lost 1,067 men killed and 6,216 wounded.

[7] The 35th Division had, as an officer, Captain Harry S. Truman, future 33rd President of the United States, who commanded Battery D of the 129th Field Artillery Regiment.

[8] Units of the 35th Division during World War I included:[9][10][11] Pursuant to the 1920 amendments to the National Defense Act of 1916, the 35th Division was reconstituted in the National Guard in 1921, allotted to the states of Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska of the Seventh Corps Area, and assigned to the VII Corps.

As early as 1922, the Nebraska National Guard found it impossible to organize the VII Corps' 127th Field Artillery Regiment because of a lack of funding and armory space.

In the 1920s and 1930s, constituent units of the division performed routine training within their respective states as well as various activities policing labor troubles and effecting disaster relief.

In the fall of 1935, the staff participated in the Fourth Army command post exercise at Fort Lewis, Washington, and went to camp at Ashland, Nebraska, the following summer.

Due to limited funding, all the units of the 35th Division did not gather together in one place for training until the Seventh Corps Area concentration of the Fourth Army maneuvers at Fort Riley, in 1937.

The division's units were ordered to report to Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas, and had arrived by the end of January, 1941.

The incomplete ranks of the 35th were swelled by thousands of draftees, a large portion of whom were from Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska, through a War Department arrangement to fill the balance of National Guard units ordered into federal service with men from their home states or corps areas insofar as was possible.

After completing the War Department-mandated divisional training program, the 35th Division maneuvered against other units in Arkansas and Louisiana in the fall of 1941.

In early 1983, the Army began the process of reestablishing the division as a mechanized infantry formation to be made up of Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and Nebraska National Guard units.

Division liaison officers served in the towns of Mostar, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Zenica and Doboj.

Several officers went on to other roles, including: Timothy J. Kadavy who served as Commander of 1st Squadron, 167th Cavalry, 35th Infantry Division in Bosnia.

Elliott Levenson was the Liaison Officer to the Italian Command at Multinational Brigade, South-East in Mostar, Bosnia.

The division provided headquarters control for National Guard units deployed to Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The 35th provided command and control from 7 November 2007 until 7 July 2008, when they were succeeded by the 110th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, Missouri Army National Guard.