Afghanistan Through My Eyes - designations

Still waiting....

Looking at all the pins, ribbons and patches on unforms I wondered about them.

For instance: How did the 25th division become, Tropic Lightning?
The division's rapid movements during its campaigns led to the adoption of the nickname Tropic Lightning.

Ernie Pyle's boys, the 34th infantry division got it's nickname from the Germans. They wore a patch designed to evoke the desert training grounds of Camp Cody, New Mexico, by superimposing a red steer skull over a black Mexican water jug. German troops in World War II, nicknamed them the Red Bulls.

There's a pin with of a fish that was worn under the collar in WWII. It meant you survived the drink and was fished out.

A dolphin pin means you're a submariner who knows all the systems by heart and can be entrusted both with the submarine and crew.

There are calvary pins, tank and armor pins, pins for the chaplin corp, dental corp, transportation pin. There's a pin for everything!

Besides pins there are slogans!

On the beach at Omaha is where the famous Ranger slogan comes from, when Colonel Max F. Schneider, commanding the 5th Ranger Battalion, Yelled out “RANGERS LEAD THE WAY!”