more at http://quickfound.net/links/military_news_and_links.html "For this issue of THE BIG PICTURE our camera crews have journeyed into the mountains of North Georgia and the swamps of Florida in order to bring the story of the U.S. Army Rangers to the television screens of America. The Rangers are a proud corps of elite combat-ready troops who undergo the most rugged training in the Army. The first Ranger unit dates back almost 200 years ago when the original thirteen colonies were under British rule. They served with General Washington's Colonial troops and they were active in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. When the Communist aggressors struck in Korea, the call for the Rangers sounded again. This BIG PICTURE episode concentrates on their training as it is practiced today." "The Big Picture" episode TV-228 Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Rangers United States Army Rangers serve in designated U.S. Army Ranger units or are graduates from the U.S. Army Ranger School. The term ranger has been in use unofficially in a military context since the early 17th century. The first military company officially commissioned as rangers were English soldiers fighting in King Philip's War (1676) and from there the term came into common official use in the French and Indian Wars. There have been American military companies officially called Rangers since the American Revolution. The 75th Ranger Regiment is an elite airborne light infantry combat formation within the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC). The six battalions of the modern Rangers have been deployed in wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and saw action in several conflicts, such as those in Panama and Grenada. The Ranger Regiment traces its lineage to three of six battalions raised in WWII, and to the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)—known as "Merrill's Marauders", and then reflagged as the 475th Infantry, then later as the 75th Infantry. The Ranger Training Brigade (RTB)—headquartered at Fort Benning—is an organization under the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and is separate from the 75th Ranger Regiment. It has been in service in various forms since World War II. The Ranger Training Brigade administrates Ranger School, the completion of which is required to become Ranger qualified and to wear the Ranger Tab... World War II On June 19, 1942 the 1st Ranger Battalion was sanctioned, recruited, and began training in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. Of 500 volunteers who first formed the Rangers at Carrickfergus, only 87 survived by the end of the war. 80 percent of the original Rangers came from the 34th Infantry Division. A select fifty or so of the first U.S. Rangers were dispersed through the British and Canadian Commandos for the Dieppe Raid in August 1942. Together with the ensuing 3rd and 4th Ranger Battalions they fought in North Africa and Italy commanded by Colonel William Orlando Darby until the Battle of Cisterna (29 January 1944) when most of the Rangers of the 1st and 3rd Battalions were captured. Of the 767 men in the battalions 761 were killed or captured. The remaining Rangers were absorbed into the Canadian-American First Special Service Force under Brigadier General Robert T. Frederick. They were then instrumental in operations in and around the Anzio beachhead that followed Operation Shingle... Vietnam War Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) and Long Range Patrol companies (commonly known as Lurps) were formed by the U.S. Army in the early 1960s in West Germany to provide small, heavily armed reconnaissance teams to patrol deep in enemy-held territory in case of war with the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. In Vietnam LRRP platoons and companies were attached to every brigade and division where they perfected the art of long-range patrolling... Ranger School Ranger Training began in September 1950 at Fort Benning Georgia "with the formation and training of 17 Airborne Companies by the Ranger Training Command". The first class graduated from Ranger training in November 1950... In 1986, the 75th Ranger Regiment was formed and their military lineage formally authorized. The 75th Ranger Regiment, comprising three battalions, is the premier light-infantry of the U.S. Army, a combination of special operations and elite airborne light infantry. The regiment is a flexible, highly trained and rapid light infantry unit specialized to be employed against any special operations targets...

• published: 20 May 2015
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