2nd Infantry Battalion 1st Marine Raider Regiment

The 2nd Infantry Battalion "Independents" (2/1) is a battalion of the 1st Marine Raider Regiment consisting of three companies, a weapons company and a headquarters and service company. The 2nd Battalion primarily recruits from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Subordinate Units
Company D

Company E

Company F

Weapons Company

Headquarters and Service Company

Campaign Credit
American Revolutionary War Whiskey Rebellion
 * New York Campaign
 * Philedelphia Campaign
 * Yorktown Campaign

Quasi-War

First Barbary War

War of 1812 Mexican American War American Civil War United States expedition to Korea
 * St. Lawrence/Lake Champlain Frontier
 * Texas Campaign
 * Mexico City Campaign
 * Western Virginia Campaign
 * Manassas Campaign
 * Shenandoah Valley Campaign
 * Northern Virginia Campaign
 * Maryland Campaign
 * Fredricksburg Campaign
 * Chancellorsville Campaign
 * Gettysburg Campaign
 * Bristoe Campaign
 * Mine Run Campaign
 * Overland Campaign
 * Richmond-Petersburg Campaign
 * Appomattox Campaign

Spanish-American War Boxer Rebellion
 * Cuban Campaign
 * Puerto Rican Campaign

United States occupation of Nicaragua

World War I Russian Civil War World War II Korean War Vietnam War Lebanese Civil War Gulf War Bosnian War Kosovo War Iraq War War in Afghanistan
 * Spring Offensive
 * Belleau Wood Campaign
 * Hundred Days Offensive
 * Meuse-Argonne Offensive
 * North Russia Intervention
 * North African Campaign
 * Invasion of Normandy
 * Siegfried Line Campaign
 * Ardennes Counteroffensive
 * Western Allied Invasion of Germany
 * United Nations Command Counteroffensive
 * Chinese Intervention
 * Stalemate
 * American Intervention
 * Tet Offensive
 * Drawdown (Vietnamization)
 * Multinational Force in Lebanon
 * Coalition Intervention
 * Liberation of Kuwait Campaign
 * Implementation Force
 * Kosovo Force
 * Invasion of Iraq
 * Al Anbar Province
 * Invasion of Afghanistan
 * Helmand Province Campaign

Traditions
The 2nd Infantry Battalion received its nickname in 1777, when the raiders of the battalion held off a vastly superior British force at the Battle of Brandywine in a temporary rearguard action. After the battle, a Continental Army officer asked the Major of the battalion how it was possible that an understrength battalion had checked a larger enemy force. The Major is said to have replied, "These men, Captain, they are the spirit of independence."

Delta Company ("the New York company"), 2nd Infantry Battalion lost every single one of its officers fighting heavily outnumbered at the Wheatfield and Peach Orchard on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Among the dead was Medal of Honor recipient Captain William T. Vandermeer, who had been shot through the neck and killed instantly after expending all of his ammunition. To commemorate these heavy casualties, officers of the Company wear red tassels on the hilts of their swords. This tradition was extended to the rest of the battalion in 1909, and since, all officers of the 2nd Infantry Battalion proudly wear the "blood tassel".