Congratulations to all of the Soldiers that competed in all of the divisions’ Best Warrior Competitions and the Drill Sergeant of the Year Competitions for the 95th and 98th Divisions. By the time you read this the USARC Competition at Fort McCoy, Wis. and the Drill Sergeant of the Year Competition at Fort Jackson, S.C. will have already taken place. Good Luck to all the competitors.
As we went through the spring a number of events just kind of reached out and reminded me of our nation’s journey to get us where we are today. Three of our nation’s conflicts started during the month of April. The American Revolution started in April 19th of 1775 with the “shot heard around the world” as the Minute Men; the original Citizen Soldiers on which we can count our legacy faced the British Army on the commons of Lexington and Concord.
Less than a century or four score and eight years later, the fabric of our nation would be torn apart at its seams and soul as the War Between the States, better know as American Civil War started. Then in April of 1898 the Spanish American War started.
But the focus on the next four years will be on the Civil War. 150 years ago, April 12, 1861, at 4:30 AM the opening salvo of the Civil War was fired by forces of the Confederate States of America against the Union Forces at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, S.C. This would lead to the prolonged conflict of four years, where almost to the day on April 9, 1865; Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia. to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s forces at small village named Appomattox, Va. The war would leave between over 600,000 Soldiers dead in one of the bloodiest conflicts in our nation’s history.
Recently I had the opportunity of doing a staff ride with the leadership of the 104th Division and its brigades to Harpers Ferry, W.Va. and to Antietam Battlefield at Sharpsburg, Md. In 1859 Harpers Ferry was the precursor to the Civil War when abolitionist John Brown tried to lead a slave revolt against the United States Armory at Harper’s Ferry. That revolt was put down by United States Marines under the command of an Army Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee his Lt., James Ewell Brown or JEB Stuart.
In September of 1862, The Battle of Antietam pitted 75,500 Soldiers of the Union Army of the Potomac under Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan against the 38,000 Confederates Soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. Robert E. Lee. On September 17th 1862, the bloodiest single-day battle in American history was waged that resulted in about 23,000 casualties. One day. Regardless of what we think that the reasons that the Civil War was fought, somehow as the forces looked across that field on that morning as the fog lifted off the that cornfield after the night’s rain, I don’t think that any of that made any differences to the Soldiers about to face each other that day. “It is well that war is so horrible. Otherwise we would grow fond of it.” Robert E. Lee
There will be memorials and commemorations, not celebrations, of the sesquicentennial held all over our nation during the next four years in many of the states that were involved in this great conflict. I would encourage you to check to see if there are any of these being held near where you live or are visiting.
And after ten years of searching, the Osama bin Laden finally got to face the might of the United States military in the form of the United States Navy’s Seal Team Six. All the services can take pride in that but as a Navy brat I know for a fact that somewhere an old Sailor is smiling.
Thanks to all of you that serve in the uniform of the United States of America. Thanks to all of our civilian support personnel that keep the ball rolling in between battle assemblies. Thank you for all of your years of dedicated service and all of the sacrifices that you and your families have made so that we could all stand in defense of this great country. Keep the Servicemen and women in harm’s way and the families affected by the spring storms and floods in your thoughts and prayers.
I’ll see you on the trail.
Victory Starts Here!