2nd Battalion - 60th Infantry Regiment
"Scouts Out"
The 2nd Battalion 60th Infantry Regiment conducts gender-integrated Basic Combat Training for volunteers entering the U.S. Army in order to provide our Army with basically-trained, disciplined, motivated, physically fit soldiers, who respond to leadership, are focused on teamwork, and espouse the Army's core values.
The Battalion was organized in June 1917 at the outset of the First World War from cadre furnished by the 7th U.S. Infantry Regiment. In November 1917 it was assigned to the 5th Infantry Division and quickly underwent its baptism of fire in the fierce warfare on the Western Front. The Battalion participated in the campaigns of St. Mihiel, Alsace and Lorraine and finally in war ending campaign of the Muese-Argonne. During this battle, 1LT Woodfill, later called by General Pershing "the outstanding doughboy of the war", won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his single-handed destruction of a German company (with all available weapons from a machine gun to pick ax) as the Battalion made an epic crossing of the Muese River under ferocious enemy fire to help break the back of German resistance.
Having successfully answered America's call to arms, the Battalion was inactivated in South Carolina in 1921. A generation later, in August 1940, war clouds again gathered over Europe and again the Battalion answered its country's call. With its assignment to the 9th Infantry Division, it once again became a part of the active Army.
The Battalion fought with superb distinction throughout the Second World War. The outfit spearheaded the Algeria-French Morocco invasion at Port Lyautey, winning the arrowhead assault landing device in a bold action which laid the basis for its distinctive nick name 'Scouts Out". The Battalion culminated its successful North African campaigns with its heroic Easter Sunday defense against the massive German attack on the Battalion, under the leadership of "Iron Mike" Kauffman, and earned a Presidential Unit Citation.
In Sicily, the Battalion continued its winning ways, culminating in the famous Ghost March where the unit infiltrated enemy lines and broke open the last of the German resistance.
In France during the heroic days of June 1944, the Battalion once again led the way for the division as it spearheaded the American advance out of the beachhead that cut the Contentin Peninsula and secured the vital Port of Cherburg. At the pivotal crossing of the Douve River, 1LT John Butts won the Medal of Honor and the Battalion gained another Presidential Unit Citation. Following the breakout at St. Lo, the battalion fought across France and in September 1944 made its second combat crossing of the Meuse River. Here, LTC Matt Urban won his Medal of Honor having gone AWOL from a hospital to rejoin his comrades and lead the in combat.
After the bitter and bloody struggle in the Huertegen Forest, the Battalion displayed its immense reserves of courage and steadfastness by winning still another Presidential Unit citation in the snow and bitter cold of the Battle of the Bulge. Following the final advance into Central Europe the Battalion won another Presidential Unit Citation and the battalion was inactivated in November 1946 while in Germany.
After service as the 2nd Battle Group, 60th Infantry from 1958-1962, the Battalion was activated at Fort Riley, Kansas in 1966, this to meet the call to action in the jungle and rice paddies of Southeast Asia. it deployed to the Republic of Vietnam in December 1966 and fought with great valor during the next three years in the in the steaming rice paddies of the Mekong Delta. During these campaigns, the Battalion perfected the famous "jitterbug tactics" which featured split-second timing of airmoble insertions often within a dozen meters of the enemy. These operations were brilliantly successful and won the Battalion many more unit citations and streamers including one Presidential Unit Citation. The unit returned to the United States in 1970. On October 13,1970 the unit was deactivated at Ft. Lewis.
The 2nd Battalion, 60th infantry was reactivated on October 21, 1972 at Ft. Lewis. The 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry was inactivated on February 1991 at Ft. Lewis and relieved from assignment to the 9th Infantry Division.
The battalion was finally called back to the roles of the active Army on 27 August 1996 at Fort Jackson, SC.
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