5th Infantry Regiment
Modern Era, United States, Infantry
The 5th Infantry Regiment, the "Bobcats," was created in 1815 during the post-War of 1812 reduction of the Regular Army. Although the regiment received its final number then, it drew part of its ancestry from older wartime regiments created in 1808 and 1812. In the decades that followed it spent much of its life on the northern frontier and in the expanding American west, building posts, guarding settlements, and serving as one of the Army's principal regular regiments in the upper Midwest.
The regiment later fought in the Civil War, the western Indian campaigns, and the Philippine-American War. Like many old Regular Army units, it alternated between campaigning and long garrison service, but by the twentieth century it had become firmly woven into the Army's divisional structure. Its official lineage and later history show a regiment that evolved from frontier infantry into a division-based modern combat formation.
In World War I the 5th Infantry was assigned to the 17th Division in July 1918, but like several late-war American units, the division did not become a major combat formation overseas before the Armistice. In the interwar years the regiment shifted between the 9th Division and the 5th Division, reflecting the Army's frequent organizational changes in the 1920s and 1930s. That pattern ended in 1943, when the regiment was assigned to the 71st Light Division, later redesignated the 71st Infantry Division.
The 5th Infantry fought in Europe in World War II as part of the 71st Infantry Division. Originally part of an experiment in creating a light division suited for difficult terrain, the regiment remained with the division after it reverted to a standard infantry formation and entered combat in 1945. It crossed into Germany in the final months of the war and shared in the division's fast advance through collapsing Nazi defenses. After the war it was inactivated in Austria, then activated in Korea in 1949.
During the Korean War the regiment again served under the 71st Infantry Division, but as a training and reinforcement organization rather than as a division deployed to combat in Korea. In 1956 it shifted to the 8th Infantry Division, and soon afterward the Combat Arms Regimental System broke the regiment into battalion-based elements. Even so, the 5th Infantry retained a coherent combat identity through its battalions.
Vietnam gave the regiment one of its most important modern combat chapters. The 1st Battle Group was first assigned to the 1st Infantry Division in 1959, but by 1963 it had been reassigned to the 25th Infantry Division and redesignated as the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry. That battalion deployed to Vietnam in 1966 and fought as part of the 2nd Brigade Task Force, 25th Infantry Division, one of the few mechanized infantry units in the war. Its campaign credit runs through the major phases of the war from Counteroffensive through Counteroffensive Phase VII and includes high-level unit awards for fighting around Cu Chi.
After Vietnam, the 5th Infantry continued to serve through battalions assigned to the 25th Infantry Division, the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea, and later other modern formations. The regiment's motto, I'll Try, Sir, reflects a long service tradition that runs from the post-1815 frontier army to mechanized war in Vietnam and expeditionary operations in the twenty-first century.
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 5th Infantry Regiment Battalions page.