2nd Ranger Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment Beret Flash Patch

On 6 June 1944, Dog, Easy and Fox Companies of the 2nd Ranger Battalion went up the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc under Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder, about 40 minutes behind schedule after a navigation error on the run in. The battalion had been formed on 1 April 1943 at Camp Forrest, Tennessee. After Normandy it fought at Brest and in the Hurtgen Forest, where it led the assault on Hill 400 at Bergstein. Inactivated in October 1945, it came back on 1 October 1974 at Fort Lewis, Washington, as the 2nd Battalion, 75th Infantry. On 3 February 1986 it became the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, the name it carries today.

In October 1983 the battalion went into Grenada in Operation Urgent Fury and came home with a Valorous Unit Award. In December 1989, during Operation Just Cause, its Rangers parachuted onto the airfield at Rio Hato, Panama. From 2002 the battalion deployed again and again to Afghanistan, and it took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the campaigns that followed. Its campaign credits include Liberation of Afghanistan, Consolidation I, Liberation of Iraq, Transition of Iraq, Iraqi Governance and National Resolution, and it holds a Valorous Unit Award for Southern Afghanistan 2011. Home station is Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle.

This is a beret flash in the shield shape worn on the tan beret, 2 by 2.25 inches, with a black merrowed edge and an iron-on backing. Inside the black border the field splits on the diagonal, green above and blue below, with a narrow band of red, tan, orange and white running corner to corner. Centered on it is the regimental shield, quartered in blue and green, with a white sun, a white star and a red lightning bolt cutting across. Those colors and devices go back to Merrill's Marauders, the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) of the China-Burma-India Theater: the sun for China, the star for Burma and the lightning bolt for the quick strike behind the lines. Two small red bars sit in the black border on each side.

Rudder's Rangers at Pointe du Hoc are the reason a Ranger battalion's history starts at the foot of a cliff. The modern battalion kept that standard through Grenada, Rio Hato and nearly two decades of rotations to Afghanistan and Iraq. Rangers were lost on those rotations, and the men who served beside them carry their names. On a tan beret, the flash is the one detail that tells another Ranger which battalion a man came from.

Set it in a shadow box with a Ranger scroll and tab, or put it on the vest that goes to a battalion reunion in the Pacific Northwest. It also makes a solid gift for a 2nd Battalion veteran, or for a son or daughter who wants to know where Pointe du Hoc and Rio Hato fit in the family story. Small patch, long history.