17th Infantry Regiment
Modern Era, United States, Infantry
The 17th Infantry Regiment originated in the Civil War expansion of the Regular Army and spent the later nineteenth century in the familiar cycle of garrison, frontier campaigning, and overseas service. It was one of the many post-1861 regiments that remained in the Army after the war and then adapted to a changing force that increasingly shifted between domestic frontier roles and expeditionary missions abroad.
In the twentieth century the regiment first moved into divisional assignment through the 11th Division in World War I, though that formation saw little combat before the war ended. In the interwar years the regiment rotated through divisional assignments and finally settled into a far more significant wartime role under the 7th Infantry Division in World War II. That association defined its main twentieth-century combat history.
With the 7th Infantry Division the 17th Infantry fought in the Aleutians, later in the Pacific, and then in Korea. The Korean War in particular made the regiment a central part of the 7th Division's combat record. Like several regiments of the division, its battalions later continued in the postwar Army under newer administrative systems, preserving the lineage while adapting to the battle-group and battalion model.
By the late twentieth century the regiment no longer fought as one traditional field regiment, but its battalions kept the history alive inside modern formations. The 17th Infantry is therefore best understood as a Civil War Regular Army lineage whose decisive twentieth-century combat service ran through the 7th Infantry Division in World War II and Korea.
Battalion Page
A dedicated battalion subpage now collects the regiment's known battalion icons and short sketches for the 1st, 2d, and 3d Battalions. Open the 17th Infantry Regiment Battalions page.