Army Ranger Tab Black and Gold Patch

The Ranger tab goes on the upper left sleeve and stays there for the rest of a soldier's career, and the way to earn it is to finish Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia. The tab was created in 1950, during the Korean War, and was awarded retroactively to men who had completed the course run by the Ranger Training Command. On 10 October 1951 that command became the Ranger Department of the Infantry School at Fort Benning. In 1954 the Army required all combat arms officers to become Ranger qualified. From then into the early 1970s the goal was one Ranger-tabbed NCO in every infantry platoon and one tabbed officer in every company.

Regulation sets the cloth tab at 2 3/8 inches long and 11/16 inch high, with a 1/8 inch yellow border and RANGER in yellow letters 5/16 inch tall. It is one of four permanent individual skill and marksmanship tabs, along with the President's Hundred, Special Forces and Sapper tabs, and no more than three can be worn at once. The first design was black and red and spelled RANGERS, adapted from the traditional Ranger scroll; the black and yellow tab came later. Certain veterans qualify as well, including Ranger Training Command graduates and specified World War II Ranger battalion and Merrill's Marauders veterans who were awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge. The tab is also authorized on the Canadian Armed Forces uniform.

This patch measures 2.5 inches wide by 1 inch tall, a little larger than the regulation tab, in the same arched shape. RANGER runs across a black field in gold block letters with a gold border all the way around. The edge is cut close to the border, so the arch keeps a crisp outline. There is nothing else on it, and nothing else needs to be. It has an iron-on backing and can also be sewn on.

A tab is not a unit patch. It does not say where a soldier served, it says what he finished. Ranger School is built around small-unit leadership under hunger, fatigue and pressure, and the soldiers who earn the tab carry that standard back to their units. That is why the Army once aimed to put a tabbed NCO in every infantry platoon. Wherever the soldier goes next, the tab goes with him.

It fits a shadow box with your Ranger School graduation photo and your unit patch, or the vest you wear to a reunion. It is also a good gift for a son or grandson who just pinned on his own tab. Black and gold, one word, and everybody knows what it took.