US Army Trivia
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100 free US Army trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
51 free US Army trivia questions with answers. The United States Army was born on June 14, 1775, a year before the country it serves, and it has spent two and a half centuries collecting nicknames, mottos, legends and lore. This US Army trivia quiz digs into all of it: the Continental Army and Washington's farewell, the storied divisions (the Big Red One, the All-Americans, the Screaming Eagles), elite units like the Rangers, Green Berets and Delta Force, and the enlisted and officer ranks from private to five-star general. You will also meet the heroes and oddities: Audie Murphy, Sergeant York, a WWI dog who caught a German spy, the surprising origin of 'G.I.', why the Army song is about caissons, and how the Purple Heart traces back to a scrap of purple cloth in 1782. Questions run from easy ones any recruit should know to expert ones that will test career soldiers and military-history buffs. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and official Army sources before publishing, and each question carries its citation. Use it for a veterans' event, a Memorial Day or Veterans Day quiz, a family history night, or just to find out how well you really know America's oldest service.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The US Army's birthday, June 14, falls on the same day as which national observance?
Flag Day
Flag Day marks the adoption of the Stars and Stripes on June 14, 1777, two years to the day after the Continental Army was created, so the Army is older than both the flag and the nation.
Q 02The Continental Army's commander-in-chief resigned his commission in December 1783 in which Maryland city?
Annapolis
Annapolis was then the national capital, and in its State House the victorious general handed back his commission instead of keeping power, then went home to his farm.
Q 03What is the official motto of the United States Army?
This We'll Defend
This We'll Defend has sat on the Army's seal since 1778, on a scroll held in a rattlesnake's mouth; better-known lines such as 'Be All You Can Be' and 'Army Strong' are only recruiting slogans.
Q 04The Army's official song grew out of a 1908 tune about which horse-drawn artillery wagons?
Caissons
Caissons are the ammunition wagons in 'The Caissons Go Rolling Along', written by artillery officer Edmund L. Gruber in 1908; John Philip Sousa turned it into a march in 1917, and the Army adopted it with new words in 1956.
Q 05What is the nickname of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, which posts the sentinels at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier?
The Old Guard
The Old Guard is said to have been named by General Winfield Scott in Mexico City in 1847, after its part in his campaign; founded in 1784, it is the oldest active regiment in the Regular Army.
Q 06The 1st Infantry Division is called 'The Big Red One' because of what?
Its red numeral shoulder patch
Its red numeral shoulder patch, a big red 1, gave the 1st Infantry Division its name; film director Samuel Fuller fought in its ranks and later retold his war in the 1980 movie The Big Red One.
Q 07Which nickname belongs to the 101st Airborne Division?
Screaming Eagles
Screaming Eagles comes from the bald eagle on the 101st's insignia: Old Abe, a live mascot that a Wisconsin regiment carried through the Civil War. HBO's Band of Brothers followed the division's Easy Company.
Q 08Which division earned the nickname 'All American' in World War I because its soldiers came from all 48 states?
82nd Airborne
82nd Airborne began in 1917 as an infantry division of draftees from all 48 states, which gave it the nickname and its 'AA' insignia; it only became the Army's first airborne division in 1942.
Q 09With which single word of American slang did the 101st's acting commander answer the German surrender demand at Bastogne in 1944?
Nuts!
Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe answered 'Nuts!', a reply that baffled the German officers, who had to have it explained. Patton's Third Army broke the siege of Bastogne days later.
Q 10On D-Day the 2nd Ranger Battalion scaled sea cliffs to destroy German guns at which Normandy site?
Pointe du Hoc
At Pointe du Hoc the guns had been moved inland, but the Rangers found and disabled them anyway. Ronald Reagan honoured the survivors there on the 40th anniversary in 1984.
Q 11Ranger School's final swamp phase is run from Camp Rudder in which state?
Florida
Florida hosts Ranger School's last phase at Camp Rudder on Eglin Air Force Base, where reptile experts teach students to tell venomous snakes from harmless ones before the swamp patrols; the earlier phases are held in Georgia.
Q 12Which president authorized the green beret as the exclusive headgear of Army Special Forces?
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy backed a beret that Fort Bragg's commander had banned in 1956, asking Special Forces to wear it for his 1961 visit; a year later he called it 'a symbol of excellence, a badge of courage'.
Q 13Which film follows a Special Forces A-team fighting on horseback in Afghanistan after 9/11?
12 Strong
Q 21Who was the last officer promoted to five-star General of the Army, in 1950?
Omar Bradley
Omar Bradley spent World War I guarding copper mines in Montana, yet in the next war he commanded the largest American force ever to serve under one field commander.
Q 22The M1 Abrams tank is unusual among tanks for being powered by what kind of engine?
A gas turbine
A gas turbine gives the heavy Abrams its high speed, but the engine is voracious: its thirst for fuel makes keeping the tanks supplied a serious logistics problem.
Q 23The UH-60 Black Hawk continues an Army tradition of naming its helicopters after what?
Native American tribes
12 Strong is named for the twelve soldiers of ODA 595, who joined Afghan fighters weeks after the attacks; few of them were practised riders, but horses were the only transport on offer in the mountains.
Q 14Delta Force founder Charles Beckwith modelled the unit on which foreign special forces regiment he had served with?
The British SAS
The British SAS hosted Beckwith as an exchange officer in the early 1960s, and he built Delta on its model in 1977. Its first major mission, Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, failed after helicopter breakdowns.
Q 15Which president signed the 1802 act establishing the United States Military Academy at West Point?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson had argued as secretary of state that the Constitution made no provision for a national military academy, yet as president he signed the 1802 act that founded West Point.
Q 16What is the three-word motto of West Point?
Duty, Honor, Country
West Point's motto is Duty, Honor, Country, and Douglas MacArthur built his famous 1962 farewell speech to the cadets around those three words. Women were first admitted to the academy in 1976.
Q 17Which animal has been the mascot of West Point's sports teams since 1899?
Mule
The mule became Army's mascot in 1899, when a quartermaster officer decided the team needed an answer to Navy's goat; mules were the obvious pick, having hauled Army gear for generations.
Q 18Who was the first Black graduate of West Point, in 1877?
Henry O. Flipper
Henry O. Flipper, born into slavery in Georgia, graduated in 1877 and served with the 10th Cavalry. He was court-martialed on disputed charges in 1881 and received a posthumous pardon in 1999.
Q 19Which general is the only officer to hold the Army's highest rank, General of the Armies, while alive?
John J. Pershing
John J. Pershing received the rank in 1919 for leading the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI; free to choose his own insignia, he simply went on wearing four stars.
Q 20Which Civil War general did a 2020s defense act authorize for posthumous promotion to General of the Armies?
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant's supporters first proposed the promotion in a 'Bicentennial Recognition Act', timed for the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2022; the authorization finally passed inside that year's defense bill.
Native American tribes and leaders give Army helicopters such as the Apache and Chinook their names; the Black Hawk honours a Sauk war leader, not a bird, and replaced the Vietnam-era Huey in 1979.
Q 24The Army's top enlisted soldier holds which title 'of the Army'?
Sergeant Major
Sergeant Major of the Army dates only from 1966, when chief of staff Harold K. Johnson wanted an adviser on enlisted soldiers' concerns; he picked William Wooldridge, then serving in Vietnam, from thousands of candidates.
Q 25What is the lowest non-commissioned officer rank in the US Army?
Corporal
Corporal is the lowest NCO rank, yet many soldiers never hold it: specialists share its E-4 pay grade without NCO status and are commonly promoted straight to sergeant.
Q 26The rank insignia of an Army Specialist (E-4) features which symbol instead of chevrons?
An eagle
An eagle sits on the Specialist's shield-shaped insignia, which soldiers call the 'sham shield': a joke that specialists, spared an NCO's duties, are experts at shamming, or dodging work.
Q 27Which Army post is the largest basic training center, handling about half of all new soldiers?
Fort Jackson
Fort Jackson in South Carolina, named for Andrew Jackson, opened as a World War I camp in 1917 and was shut down in 1922; revived in 1939 for the next war, it has trained soldiers ever since.
Q 28Which Kentucky Army post sits beside the US Bullion Depository holding much of the nation's gold?
Fort Knox
Fort Knox takes its name from Henry Knox, the first secretary of war; during World War II the gold vault next door also sheltered the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Q 29What was Fort Bragg renamed in 2023, before the old name returned in 2025?
Liberty
Fort Bragg became Fort Liberty in June 2023. The Bragg name came back in 2025, this time honouring WWII paratrooper Private First Class Roland L. Bragg rather than the Confederate general Braxton Bragg.
Q 30Which 1827 Kansas post houses the Command and General Staff College and the DoD's only maximum-security prison?
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth was founded in 1827 as a forward base protecting the Santa Fe Trail; its staff college later schooled Dwight Eisenhower, who graduated first in a class of 245 in 1926.