Introduction
With the ongoing Army Transformation Initiative (ATI), changes to Army force structure are occurring every day, reshaping the force to meet threats of the future battlefield. With the conversion of the veteran Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Global War on Terror era to the new Mobile Brigade Combat Team (MBCT), the Army is seeking to create a lighter and more mobile force. As part of this conversion, Brigade Commanders will no longer have a Cavalry Squadron to rely on for gathering intelligence and reconnaissance on the battlefield; instead, they will have the new Multi-Functional Reconnaissance Company (MFRC) at their disposal. Tested and evaluated by units like the 2d Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, and the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 2d Infantry Division for nearly two years, the new MFRCs seek to capitalize on emerging technology and lessons learned from recent combat operations in Ukraine to increase the Army’s effectiveness at meeting new threats on the battlefield.
Although filled with high-speed new technology, the MFRC will also need to rely on the basic fundamentals of reconnaissance, such as those taught through courses like the Army’s Reconnaissance and Surveillance Leaders Course (RSLC). RSLC cadre have been instrumental in evaluating and guiding the new MFRC concept, drawing from years of institutional schoolhouse knowledge and the combat-tested lessons of the Army’s old Long Range Surveillance (LRS) and Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) units. Though an entirely different mission set from the old LRS and LRRP units, the MFRC builds from the basic force structure of an Infantry Company. As such, the Army has decided to keep these units named and numbered as separate Infantry companies, much like the old LRS-Cs of the GWOT.
Force Structure
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MFRC UAS Reconnaissance Training
Fort Campbell, Kentucky – April 25, 2024
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Figure 1. Soldiers assigned to Multi Functional Reconnaissance Company, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, conduct area reconnaissance using an Unmanned Aerial Surveillance (UAS) drone during Operation Lethal Eagle 24.1 at Fort Campbell, Ky., April 25, 2024.
Since 2024, the MFRCs tested in the field have experimented with multiple different task organizations. During the March 2025 Korea Combat Training Center Rotation, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 2d Infantry Division fielded a trial MFRC composed of elements drawn from across four of its battalions, utilizing a Headquarters and Mortar Section, three Scout Platoons, Electronic Warfare (EW), and Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Platoons. The 2d Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division operated under a similar structure during a training rotation at Fort Polk in 2024, utilizing three reconnaissance platoons, one drone/EW platoon, and a platoon utilizing robot and autonomous systems for surveillance. While reconnaissance-focused, infantrymen predominantly staff the MFRCs, Army Force Management experts evaluated several courses of action and ultimately organized the units as a separate lettered infantry company. The Army has utilized this unique configuration in the past for LRS companies, anti-armor companies, pathfinder companies, and other stand-alone Infantry assets utilized at a Brigade or Division level. With the large volume of MFRCs activating, the U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH) worked with the Army’s Force Management planners to find historic units that emulated the stand-alone nature of the MFRC.
Legacy
Several inactive historic regiments and battalions were selected by CMH and Force Management for activation as MFRCs. Some had been inactive for nearly 80 years, while others have seen more recent service with multiple commands. Though each story is different, they all played an important role in the Army’s history, trailblazing the way with innovative technology or force structure in the same way the MFRCs and ATI are blazing a path on today’s battlefield.
51st Infantry Regiment
The 51st Infantry Regiment is a veteran of WWI, WWII, Vietnam, and the War on Terrorism. Its reactivation as a parent unit for MFRCs draws upon its long and storied legacy. First organized in 1917 in Georgia, the 51st served at the tail end of World War I in France, earning battle honors in Alsace and the Meuse Argonne with the 6th Division. During WWII, the unit reorganized and served as three separate Armored Infantry Battalions in the new 4th Armored Division, helping to shape the way in which Armored doctrine developed during the conflict.
The 51st again saw service during the Vietnam War, where individual lettered Companies were activated to fill critical gaps in U.S. Army Vietnam. Company D, activated in 1966 at Fort Lewis, Washington, and deployed to Vietnam to serve as a Rifle Security Company until 1971, earning a Meritorious Unit Citation for their actions with the 97th Military Police Battalion. Companies E and F were activated in Vietnam in 1967, attached to the 23d Infantry Division (Americal) and II Field Force, respectively. The companies provided Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol assets to their higher headquarters. Both units would earn decorations for their valor and proficiency in this role and add another five battle streamers to their colors before their inactivation between 1968 and 1969.
In the 1980s, both Company E and F would be activated again, serving as corps-level Long Range Surveillance Companies. Company F saw combat service during Operation Desert Storm with the 511th Military Intelligence Battalion, conducting reconnaissance missions for the 207th Military Intelligence Brigade and 2d Armored Cavalry. Company E would deploy to Bosnia in 1996 to support operations as part of the 165th Military Intelligence Battalion, and in the War on Terrorism, both deployed as LRS companies in Iraq, and Company F would later reorganize as an Anti-Armor Company in the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division.
Throughout its decades of service, the 51st Infantry has provided reconnaissance-focused separate lettered companies and trialed other innovative force structures, and as the MFRCs activate this year, it will again fill this role for the Brigade Combat Teams of the 10th Mountain Division.
25th Infantry Regiment
In the aftermath of the Civil War, the United States Army expanded its peacetime authorization for Infantry Regiments and recruited for the first time full Regular Army regiments of African American infantrymen. Recruited largely from veterans of the Civil War’s United States Colored Troops, the 25th Infantry Regiment helped rebuild the Army in the post-war years. 25th Infantry soldiers served on the American frontier, in the Indian Wars, and provided critical military presence along the Mexican Border.
In 1895, the 25th Infantry was selected to trial a new innovative form of transportation on the battlefield, fielding and evaluating the Army’s first Bicycle Corps. The Army had been eyeing technological developments in European Armies and saw a need to test, evaluate, and develop a bicycle doctrine of its own. For three years, the men of the 25th performed tests and conducted long-range movements with the bicycle corps, traversing the country and demonstrating the applicability of the new technology to military operations. While the trials were successful, the outbreak of war in 1898 called the 25th Infantry away for service in Cuba and later the Philippines, where they demonstrated their prowess on the battlefield and in counterinsurgency operations.
In 1913, the 25th Infantry Regiment was transferred to Hawaii, where it served as part of the island’s garrison force. The 25th undertook several projects to improve the island’s accessibility for soldiers, including blazing a 30-mile jungle trail, now preserved as the Mauna Loa trail. During World War I, the 25th Infantry provided a Regular Army garrison force to protect the islands from possible invasion. Deployed to the Pacific Theater during World War II, the 25th would serve first as a Regimental Combat Team, and later as part of the 93d Infantry Division, adding another three battle streamers to the five already hanging from their colors.
Their long history of combat operations in INDOPACOM and as a garrison force in Hawaii, along with their innovative testing of Army doctrine in the 1890s, made them the ideal choice for the MFRCs of the Brigade Combat Teams organic to the 25th Infantry Division and 1st Brigade Combat Team, 11th Airborne Division.
551st Infantry Regiment
During World War II, the Airborne Infantry was in its infancy, with the Army’s first airborne regiments organized in 1942. From among these early volunteers, the Army decided to organize a separate parachute battalion assigned to garrison the Panama Canal Zone. This unit would test the feasibility of Airborne operations in a jungle environment and provide feedback to Army planners on doctrine and equipment as they prepared for combat operations.
The 1st Battalion, 551st Infantry (often referred to as the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion) was activated at Fort Kobbe in Panama in November 1942. 551st troopers sweated through the jungle heat, built Army tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) for operating in a jungle environment, and prepared for a scratched invasion of the Island of Martinique. The “GOYAS,” as they became known, established a reputation as a tough, adaptable group of paratroopers. Despite all their extensive training in the Canal Zone, in April of 1944, the unit was deployed not to the jungles of the Pacific but to the rocky coast of Sicily and Italy.
In the summer of 1944, the Army tasked the men of the 551st to adapt yet again, deploying them in their first combat operation as part of the 1st Airborne Task Force in the invasion of southern France. There, the regiment helped secure the liberation of Nice, actively patrolled the Alps, and became adept at ski patrols and winter and mountain warfare operations. Later in the winter of 1944, during the Ardennes Offensive, the 551st supported multiple commands across the XVIII Airborne Corps and played a critical role in the capture of the town of Rochelinval, an action that would later earn them a Presidential Unit Citation. The 551st was inactivated in the winter of 1945, and its veterans provided experienced paratroopers to the other Airborne units in Europe.
With this strong tradition of airborne innovation and adaptation, the activation of elements of the 551st as the MFRCs for the Brigade Combat Teams of the 101st Airborne Division and 173d Airborne Brigade opens yet another chapter in their storied history.
555th Infantry Battalion
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555th Parachute Infantry – “Triple Nickle”
Operation Firefly – Wallowa Forest, Oregon
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Figure 5. Operation Firefly – A C-47 of Troop Carrier Command carries these parachutists of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion to the scene of a remote fire in Wallowa Forest, Oregon.
Few unit numbers are as instantly recognizable in the airborne community as the famed “Triple Nickle,” or 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion. Organized first as a separate Parachute Infantry Company in December of 1943 from all African American volunteers, the unit was eventually expanded in November 1944 to become the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion by recruiting a mix of veteran infantrymen, eager draftees, and service troops looking for adventure to form several additional companies.
The 555th trained extensively at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, perfecting its skills in parachute operations and building a reputation for rugged proficiency, with minimal injuries in their hundreds of parachute training jumps. In May of 1945, following the landing of “balloon bombs” on the western coast of the United States, significant shortages of wildland firefighters and threatened homes and national forests in Washington, Oregon, and California caused a shift in mission.
The 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion was deployed to Pendleton Field, Oregon, and took part in what would become known as “Operation Firefly.” The unit organized “stand-by detachments” of paratroopers who would jump in at a moment’s notice into affected areas, helping to contain and extinguish wildfires. For their actions on the West Coast, the 555th earned the nickname “Smoke Jumpers,” and national fame as newsreels and images of their exploits circulated the country.
After the close of hostilities, the 555th was transferred to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was attached to the returning 82d Airborne Division. Members of the Triple Nickle marched with the Division in multiple post-war parades and events, and continued training under the direction and administration of the “All Americans” for two more years. In December of 1947, the 555th Infantry Battalion was inactivated at Fort Bragg, and members of the unit transferred to the 3d Battalion, 505th Infantry.
As the unit activates this year, it will retain its historic designation as a battalion, a unique aspect of its World War II service that will set it apart from the other MFRCs. With the historic connection to the 82d Airborne Division and Fort Bragg, as well as a tradition of innovation and transformation to meet emerging threats, the 555th Infantry Battalion will fill an important role as it returns to service with the 82d Airborne Division and the 2d Brigade Combat Team, 11th Airborne Division.