29th Infantry Division (United States)
formation of the United States Army (1917–19, 1923–68, 1985–present)
The 29th Infantry Division (29th ID), also known as the "Blue and Gray Division", is an infantry division of the United States Army based at Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Virginia. The division is currently a formation of the Army National Guard and includes units from Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia.
Formed in 1917, the division deployed to France as a part of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I. It was called up for service again during World War II. The division's 116th Regiment, attached to the 1st Infantry Division, was the first wave of troops ashore during the Normandy landings in France (Operation Overlord). It supported a special Ranger unit tasked with clearing strong points at Omaha Beach. The rest of the 29th ID came ashore later, then advanced to Saint-Lô, and eventually through France and into Germany.
Following the end of World War II, the division saw frequent reorganizations (especially Pentomic), and was then inactivated in 1968. It was reformed in 1985, taking part in numerous training exercises. Then in the 1990s it made peacekeeping deployments to Bosnia-Herzegovina (SFOR10) and Kosovo (KFOR) as command elements. Units of the division deployed to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. Then parts of the division fought in the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021); and in the Iraq War as a part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2715528. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1968, 1985 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “29th Infantry Division (United States)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.