Angels reborn?
 

"It’s not clear yet how other signifiers of identity — such as unit patches, skill tabs and badges — will play into the effort, but Congress wants the service to go further than just force structure and regalia. Currently, the two infantry brigades in Alaska wear the “Tropic Lightning” patch of the Hawaii-headquartered 25th Infantry Division."

That gave me a chuckle. Infantry soldiers stationed in Alaska wearing "Tropic Lightning" patches.

I think it’s a recognition that the modular brigade system and it’s disassociated division base have fallen by the wayside. The pre- modular 25th had between two and three maneuver brigades in Hawaii with the third at Lewis in the mid-late 90s. The division was focused on a series of pacific contingencies; primarily Korea, but also exercising in Japan, Thailand, Phillipines, and Australia. Alaska had the 6th ID that morphed into the 172nd SIB with a primarily Alaska defense mission. Stryker, modularity, and GWOT saw the 172d go away (to Germany as a short lived reflag of a 1st AD brigade), the 1/25 at Lewis become independent of the 25th before moving to a Alaska as a reflag of the 172d, and 4/25 get stood up to take over the pacific contingency mission from the 25th. The 25th itself got a Stryker brigade (2/25) at schofield and a modular infantry brigade (3/25).

Since the army has moved back to fighting as divisions and corps, 25th has reformed 2/25 and 3/25 as infantry brigades and reestablished the division base as a controlling headquarters for them. It would make sense to do the same in Alaska to put a division headquarters over the two brigades there.

FWIW, two of the "regiments" of the 25th Division are the 27th and 31st Infantry, respectively the Wolfhounds and the Polar Bears, since their first campaigns were in 1918 Siberia. They spent much of their postwar times in Alaska or Hawaii, plus Vietnam.

And the 31st Infantry had the distinction of having fought in three wars before ever being located in the United States. One of its battalions, the 1st, has never served in the US! (In my T2kU I have it attached to the British 6th Division in China.)

4-31 polar bears has a great tradition at drum. In the 25th ID, the ‘old regiments” are the 27th (wolfhounds- James Jones’s regiment) and 35th (cacti); the others are Post Korea. The 21st (gimlets) was a Hawaiian division regiment, but belonged to the 24th ID in WW2 and Korea (task force smith) or other units until joining the 25th ID in the post Vietnam era.

There’s a lot of “tradition” to the polar bears, gimlets, and wolfhounds. The polar bears travel with a four foot high carved wooden polar bear statue, “George”; they also maintain their silver from pre WW2 service in China, which was buried on Corregidor in 1942 to prevent its capture by the Japanese. The wolfhounds have a white male Borzoi named “Kolchak” as their mascot in a tradition dating from the original gift from Admiral Kolchak during their service in Russia. The gimlets wear a “gimlet stick” as part of their uniform once earned, signifying membership in the Royal Gimlet Clan; the practice dates back to their reputation for physical toughness earned during Hawaiian division athletic events in the 1920s.

So, going back to a force structure kind of like the 6th ID days. 6th ID had a division base plus two brigades that had been firmed from an old style infantry brigade (going from four line cos and a Csc to smaller 3 co light infantry battalions and a single airborne battalion all out of hide). It looks like additional brigades are supposed to come in from elsewhere to add capability.

Neat! I also love the nickname for the 31st as "America's Foreign Legion"

There’s an Army Urban Legend that there’s no 1st-3d battalions of the 31st in the force structure because the 31st was part of the 1942 surrender in the Philippines and those battalions were never reformed because they had surrendered. A variation on this legend states that the 1st-3rd battalions were “banished” from serving in the US due to their surrender.

As interesting as those stories sound they’re not true. 4-31 ended up staying active by luck and timing as it moved to 10th Mountain and weathered the deactivation of sister battalions in Korea (1st), Fort Ord (2d), and Fort Irwin(6th). As the most decorated battalion (one more PUC than the rest)in the regiment it was chosen to remain active in a lucky break from the tradition of maintaining the lowest numbered battalion on active status.