[mass55th]

Thank you!! Visited Antietam battlefield quite a few times over the years. Both the 2nd and 20th Massachusetts Infantry Regiments fought at Antietam. Between the two units, Robert Gould Shaw, Norwood Penrose Hallowell, and Henry Sturgis Russell would go on to command the first black regiments raised in the north...the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiments, and the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry (unmounted). One of Frederick Douglass's sons served in the 54th, and another in the 5th Mass. Cavalry. Towards the end of the war, the 5th Mass. Cav. was sent to guard Confederate POW's at Point Lookout in Maryland. George T. Garrison, son of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison also served as an officer in the 55th Massachusetts. He had never held a commission prior to his joining the unit.

One thing that I recently learned was that when Baron von Richtofen was shot down, the men of the RAF gave him a hero's funeral with Honor Guard and rifle salute.

[fugazi]

From Ronald Reagan's radio address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day (May 15, 1982): "In James Michener's book THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI he writes of an officer waiting through the night for the return of planes to a carrier as dawn is coming on. And he asks, 'Where do we find such men?' Well, we find them where we've always found them. They are the product of the freest society man has ever known. They make a commitment to the military—make it freely, because the birthright we share as Americans is worth defending. God bless America. "