The 75th Ranger Regiment and its subordinate battalions are somewhat unique in the world of insignias in that the design of the their Airborne background trimmings, or ovals, is completely
different than that of their corresponding organizational flashes. Well, almost completely different: each Battalion’s flash and oval share the same number of small, red notches on the left and right sides of the insignias that denote their numerical designation.
Another interesting fact about the 75th Ranger Regiment, 2nd Battalion beret flash is that when it was originally approved in 1974, the border was white and the diagonal band was colored, from top to bottom, red-buff-orange, as opposed to this version worn since 2001 with a black border and a band of red-buff-orange-white. It almost goes without saying that the date that the 2nd Ranger Battalion oval was first worn—June 1984—has nothing to do with either of the other dates.
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Today’s 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment—or just 2nd Ranger Battalion for short—is headquartered at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington but conducts training at Fort Moore, Georgia, home of the United States Army Maneuver Center of Excellence and the United State Army Airborne School. (Note: Fort Moore was known as Fort Benning until late October 2023). Its origins go back to the creation of two units during World War II: the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations in October 1943 and Company A, 2nd Ranger Battalion in the European Theater.
Between them, these units took part in seven World War II campaigns, but the Battalion is credited with an astonishing sixteen WWI campaigns because of the battle honors belonging to units that were consolidated with them over the years. Other battle honors include four Korean War campaigns and nine in Vietnam, two Armed Forces Expeditions involving Assault landings (Grenada and Panama), and seven in the War on Terrorism.
The Battalion’s list of military decorations is equally impressive: not counting honors awarded to individual Companies in the Battalion, the unit is the recipient of six Presidential Unit Citations and five Valorous Unit Awards, with the most recent VUA being awarded in 2014 for the Battalion’s “collective acts of heroism” in disrupting Taliban, Haqqani, and other anti-government elements in Kandahar, Helmand, and Zabul Provinces in southern Afghanistan between August and December 2011.
Related Items
75th Ranger Regiment, 2nd Battalion Combat Service ID Badge (CSIB)
75th Ranger Regiment, 2nd Battalion Patch (SSI-MOHC)