United States Army Rangers
The United States Army Rangers are U.S. Army personnel who have served in any unit which has held the official designation of "Ranger". The term is commonly used to include graduates of the Ranger School, even if they have never served in a "Ranger" unit, because Army regulations and special qualification identifier codes provide that the only requirement to earn the "Title: Ranger" is that a soldier "must successfully complete the appropriate training at the Infantry School."
In a broader and less formal sense, the term "ranger" has been used, officially and unofficially, in North America since the 17th century, to describe specialized light infantry in small, independent units—usually companies. The first units to be officially designated Rangers were companies recruited in the New England Colonies to fight against Native Americans in King Philip's War. Following that time, the term became more common in official usage, during the French and Indian Wars of the 18th century. The U.S. military has had "Ranger" companies since the American Revolutionary War. British Army units designated as "Rangers" have often also had historical links of some kind to British North America.
The 75th Ranger Regiment is an elite airborne light infantry combat formation within the United States Army Special Operations Command. The six battalions of the modern Rangers have been deployed in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Ranger Regiment traces its lineage to three of six battalions raised in World War II, and to the 5307th Composite Unit —known as "Merrill's Marauders", and then reflagged as the 475th Infantry, then later as the 75th Infantry.
The Ranger Training Brigade —headquartered at Fort Benning—is an organization under the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command and is separate from the 75th Ranger Regiment. It has been in service in various forms since World War II. The Ranger Training Brigade administers Ranger School, the satisfactory completion of which is required to earn the title Ranger and to wear the Ranger Tab.
History
Colonial period
Rangers played a crucial role in the 17th and 18th-century conflicts between American colonists and Native American tribes. British regular troops were unfamiliar with frontier warfare, leading to the development of Ranger companies to specialize in such tactics. Rangers were full-time soldiers employed by colonial governments to patrol between fixed frontier fortifications in reconnaissance providing early warning of raids. In offensive operations, they were scouts and guides, locating villages and other targets for taskforces drawn from the militia or other colonial troops.In Colonial America, "The earliest mention of Ranger operations comes from Capt. John "Samuel" Smith", who wrote in 1622, "When I had ten men able to go abroad, our common wealth was very strong: with such a number I ranged that unknown country 14 weeks." Robert Black also stated that,
In 1622, after the Berkeley Plantation Massacre... grim-faced men went forth to search out the Indian enemy. They were militia—citizen soldiers—but they were learning to blend the methods of Indian and European warfare... As they went in search of the enemy, the words range, ranging and Ranger were frequently used... The American Ranger had been born.
The father of American ranging is Colonel Benjamin Church. He was the captain of the first Ranger force in America. Church was commissioned by the Governor of the Plymouth Colony Josiah Winslow to form the first ranger company for King Philip's War. He later employed the company to raid Acadia during King William's War and Queen Anne's War.
Benjamin Church designed his force primarily to emulate Native American patterns of war. Toward this end, Church endeavored to learn to fight like Native Americans from Native Americans. Americans became rangers exclusively under the tutelage of the Native American allies.
Church developed a special full-time unit mixing white colonists selected for frontier skills with friendly Native Americans to carry out offensive strikes against hostile Native Americans in terrain where normal militia units were ineffective. In 1716, his memoirs, entitled Entertaining Passages relating to Philip's War, was published and is considered by some to constitute the first American military manual.
Under Church served the father and grandfather of two famous rangers of the eighteenth century: John Lovewell and John Gorham respectively. John Lovewell served during Dummer's War. He lived in present-day Nashua, New Hampshire. He fought in Dummer's War as a militia captain, leading three expeditions against the Abenaki tribe. John Lovewell became the most famous Ranger of the eighteenth century.
Many Colonial officers would take the philosophies of Benjamin Church's ranging and form their own Ranger units.
During King George's War, John Gorham established "Gorham's Rangers". Gorham's company fought on the frontier at Acadia and Nova Scotia. Gorham was commissioned a captain in the British Army in recognition of his outstanding service. He was the first of three prominent American rangers–himself, his younger brother Joseph Gorham and Robert Rogers—to earn such commissions in the British Army.
Rogers' Rangers was established in 1751 by Major Robert Rogers, who organized nine Ranger companies in the American colonies. Roger's Island, in modern day Fort Edward, NY, is considered the "spiritual home" of the United States Special Operations Forces, particularly the United States Army Rangers. These early American light infantry units, organized during the French and Indian War, bore the name "Rangers" and were the forerunners of the modern Army Rangers. Major Rogers drafted the first currently-known set of standard orders for rangers. These rules, Robert Rogers' 28 "Rules of Ranging", are still provided to all new Army Rangers upon graduation from training, and served as one of the first modern manuals for asymmetric warfare.
American Revolution
Loyalist Rangers
Fearing that Rogers was a spy, Washington refused to accept Rogers help. An incensed Rogers instead joined forces with the Loyalists, raised the Queen's Rangers, and fought for the Crown, giving historical confirmation to Washington's concerns about the depth of his patriotism. While serving with the British, Col. Rogers was further responsible for capturing America's most famous spy in Nathan Hale.After Colonel Robert Rogers left the Queen's Rangers, he travelled to Nova Scotia, where he raised King's Rangers, in 1779. The regiment was disbanded in 1783.
Continental Rangers
In 1775, the Continental Congress later formed eight companies of elite light infantry to fight in the Revolutionary War, several notable Rangers-led Continental units such as Jonathan Moulton, Moses Hazen, Simeon Thayer, Nathaniel Hutchins, and Israel Putnam. In 1777, this force commanded by Daniel Morgan, was known as The Corps of Rangers. Francis Marion, "The Swamp Fox", organized another famous Revolutionary War Ranger element known as "Marion's Partisans". Perhaps the most famous Ranger unit in the Revolutionary War was Butler's Rangers, from upstate New York. Continental Army Rangers officers such as John Stark, commanded the 1st New Hampshire Regiment, which gained fame at the Battles of Bunker Hill and Bennington. Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys in Vermont were also designated as a ranger unit.Later on during the war, General Washington ordered Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton to select an elite group of men for reconnaissance missions. This unit was known as Knowlton's Rangers, and is credited as the first official Ranger unit for the United States. This unit carried out intelligence functions rather than combat functions in most cases, and as such are not generally considered the historical parent of the modern day Army Rangers.
In June 1775 Ethan Allen and Seth Warner had the Continental Congress create a Continental Ranger Regiment including many of the famed Green Mountain Boys. Warner was elected the Regiment's Colonel with the Rangers forming part of the Continental Army's Invasion of Quebec in 1775. The Regiment was disbanded in 1779.
Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" Revolutionary commander of South Carolina, developed irregular methods of warfare during his guerrilla period in South Carolina. He is credited in the lineage of the Army Rangers, as is George Rogers Clark who led an irregular force of Kentucky/Virginia militiamen to capture the British forts at Vincennes, Indiana and Kaskaskia, Illinois.