10th Mountain Division Officially Brings Back WWII Symbol After 80 Years

The 10th Mountain Division announced May 20 that it has authorized soldiers to wear crossed ski insignia on their Army Green Service Uniform garrison caps. The pins have unofficially represented soldiers of the division since World War II, but the Army never recognized them until this week.

Maj. Gen. Scott Naumann, the division’s commanding general at Fort Drum, N.Y., approved the change as part of a broader push to reconnect today’s soldiers with the division’s alpine roots.

“The crossed skis are more than a symbol from our past,” Naumann said in an Army statement. “They represent the toughness, adaptability and spirit that define this division.”

The Origins of the Crossed Ski Pins

During WWII, soldiers at Camp Hale, Colo., commissioned local craftsmen to produce the crossed ski pins and paid for them out of their own pockets. Troops wore the emblems in place of standard branch insignia on their garrison caps throughout training and their deployment overseas.

Despite their widespread use, the Army never formally adopted the pins. They spent more than 80 years outside the approved uniform code, even as they became one of the most recognizable symbols in the division.

The insignia will now appear on the garrison cap worn with the Army Green Service Uniform, the WWII-inspired daily wear uniform the Army began fielding in 2020.

Command Sgt. Maj. Brett Johnson, the division’s senior enlisted leader, said the crossed skis also carry an important message.

“When a soldier puts on that cap and sees the crossed skis, it’s a reminder of the legacy they’re part of,” Johnson said. “It tells them, ‘You belong to a division known for going where others dare not go, and you’re expected to carry that forward.'”

A Legendary Division

The 10th Mountain Division is the only division in the U.S. military whose creation was driven by a civilian. Charles Minot “Minnie” Dole, founder of the National Ski Patrol, spent months lobbying the War Department for a dedicated mountain warfare unit after Finnish ski troops decimated a far larger Soviet force during the Winter War of 1939-40.

In September 1940, Dole brought his case directly to Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall, who gave his approval. The National Ski Patrol then became the only civilian agency the War Department ever authorized to recruit soldiers, bringing in more than 7,000 volunteers, according to the National WWII Museum.

The 10th Light Division (Alpine) stood up on July 15, 1943, at Camp Hale, a training post in Colorado’s Pando Valley at 9,200 feet. Soldiers trained on skis, snowshoes and climbing ropes through field exercises in temperatures that plunged well below zero.

The unit was redesignated as the 10th Mountain Division in November 1944 and deployed to Italy two months later.

On the night of Feb. 18, 1945, the soldiers scaled the ice-covered cliffs of Riva Ridge, then seized Mount Belvedere to crack open German defenses in the northern Apennines. The division never lost a battle or gave up ground.

In 114 days of combat, close to 1,000 soldiers were killed and more than 4,000 wounded.

Pfc. John Magrath, a 20-year-old radio operator from Connecticut, earned a posthumous Medal of Honor on April 14, 1945, after he charged German machine gun positions near Castel d’Aiano armed with only a rifle, capturing one gun and using it to knock out several more enemy emplacements before he was killed. He was the only soldier in the division to receive the award during the war.

After the war, division veterans opened ski resorts across the country, including Vail, Aspen and Arapahoe Basin. The Army reactivated the division at Fort Drum in 1985 as a light infantry force. It has since been deployed to Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Division Returns to its Roots

The insignia authorization is the latest in a series of heritage efforts by division leadership. In January, Naumann dedicated the Dole Heritage Complex at Fort Drum’s post museum, honoring the civilian skier whose lobbying created the division.

At the ceremony, Naumann told the audience why the division’s WWII origins still matter to soldiers who now deploy to deserts and cities around the world.

“When those first mountain troopers climbed Riva Ridge in February of 1945, ascending the ice-covered cliffs the enemy believed were unpassable and unclimbable, they carried more than weapons and rope,” Naumann said. “They carried Minnie Dole’s conviction that preparation, skill, and courage could overcome any obstacle.”

Trux Dole, grandson of Charles Minot Dole and Chairman of the 10th Mountain Foundation, also spoke at the dedication.

“Today is yet another manifestation of the fact that this is the 10th Mountain family and 10th Mountain community,” Dole said. “There is a whole broader 10th Mountain community that you joined when you joined the 10th.”

Soldiers also traveled to Italy in February 2025 for the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Riva Ridge. During Legacy Days in Vail, Colo., earlier this year, they skied with flares in a torchlight parade retracing routes the division’s ski troopers trained on during the war.

Over the last 80 years, the 10th Mountain Division has become the most deployed division in Army history. Its motto, “Climb to Glory,” also traces back to its WWII roots. With the crossed ski pins now officially authorized on their garrison caps, the division is reminding everyone about its legendary past.