Posted on 06/13/2009 10:30:23 AM PDT by SandRat
FORT HUACHUCA — On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress established the country’s Army consisting of 10 companies totaling 810 soldiers.
“Two hundred and thirty-four years ago, the United States Army was established to defend our nation,” and from the Revolutionary War to the Global War on Terrorism it has, Maj. Gen. John Custer said Friday morning.
Standing before him on Brown Parade Field was a representative group of soldiers from the different units on the post who can trace their direct lineage back to the small group of soldiers from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia who took up arms and marched to the heights overlooking Boston and reported to a general named George Washington.
“During the Revolutionary War, America’s first soldiers were armed with little more than hunting muskets. Most enlistees had no uniforms. Gunpowder was scare, and boots, to many, were a luxury,” said Custer who commands the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca.
Friday’s event was two days before the actual Army birthday which is Sunday.
The general noted ideals are what sustain soldiers. “Today, hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the United States Army are deployed, forward stationed overseas or working to protect the homeland,” Custer said.
Later in the ceremony, he and the youngest soldier on the post, Pfc. Garrett Bouldin, 17, of Company A, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Training Battalion, cut the fort’s Army birthday cake.
A little more than a year after the Continental Congress established the Army, soldiers were nearing the end of their enlistments in the winter of 1776. As to the concerns about the fate of the nation, which in July of that year declared its independence, Custer quoted Thomas Paine, who wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
And there were those who stood by the nation in the cold, dark days of the winter of 1776, the general said. And, he said, “we are now again in a winter of 1776.”
Fighting two wars separates the weak from the strong and “the soldiers standing here before us today, whether or not in the Army before we began the War on Terror are still here today,” Custer said.
It was a choice each individual made and because of that “we celebrate the Army birthday every year not because we have to, but because it represents a small band of patriots joined together to fight for a set of ideals,” he said.
Custer said there is no quote worthy to praise what each of those who wear the Army uniform are doing. “Sometimes ‘Army Strong’ seems to be an understatement in describing what you do,” the general said.
Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.
An army created
On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia passed a resolution establishing an Army.
The document stated: “That six companies of expert riflemen be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland and two in Virginia; that each company consist of a captain, three lieutenants, four sergeants, four corporals, a drummer or trumpeter and sixty-eight privates.
“That each company, as soon as completed, shall march and join the Army near Boston, to be there employed as light infantry under the command of the chief officer in that Army.”
The Army was formed more than a year before the United States declared its independence on July 4, 1776. In 1777, again on June 14, the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia adopted another resolution that stated: “That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate white and red; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.”
So, first there was an Army, then a Declaration of Independence and finally a flag for which the Army was to fight for all taking place in 1775, 1776 and 1777, making 2009 the 234th year of the existence of the Army, the 233rd year of the nation’s independence and the 232nd year of the creation of the Stars and Stripes.
I always liked Sierra Vista and Ft. Hoochi Choochi.
Good folks.
Unfortunately the “new” ideals of the ‘60s generation of sexual license, hedonism, greed, and general selfishness and narcissism—evidenced by things like out of wedlock births (1 of 3 babies in the USA today is a bastard—using the term correctly), abortion (over 1 of 4 pregnancies is “terminated,” to prevent even more bastards I suppose—and instead creating killers of their mothers), “legitimized” and legalized sodomy, homosexual marriage, euthanasia and ad nauseum, are NOT the kinds of “freedoms” honorable men & women will die for.
The Obama-nation we are becoming will have a hard time finding soldiers, I believe.
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