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In many ways, we take for granted that we have an army to protect us and fight in times of war. After all, they’ve always been here, haven’t they? Like many other aspects of our relatively young country, the Army has undergone changes over the past nearly two and half centuries, starting before it was even officially the fighting force of the United States.
As the original 13 colonies faced impending war with the British Empire, rallying cries went out to form a military unit to defend the new freedoms the colonists were trying to solidify.
Great debate raged among the colonial representatives about the wisdom of a national fighting force, with many of the Founding Fathers campaigning for a militia-type model with each colony forming its own army.
On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress officially formed the Continental Army, a unified fighting force, but with one compromise: that it would be disbanded after the war.
General George Washington was unanimously elected the commander-in-chief and eventually led the new country to victory.
After the Revolutionary War, however, the Continental Army only sort of disbanded. While it had been at first a purely voluntary service, with soldiers paid a stipend to offset the cost of not being home to farm fields and run businesses, once all the civilian force went home, the Army realigned under now-President Washington and the new United States Congress to include professional soldiers always at the ready in case of attack.
In 1812, the Army was called upon once again to fight its only enemy so far: the British. The War of 1812 saw important historical events, including the burning of the White House – and First Lady Dolly Madison famously saving the portrait of George Washington – and the shelling of Baltimore harbor, which inspired Francis Scott Key to pen “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The mid- and late-1800s saw two very different wars involving extraordinary unity and division within a very short time. Commanding officers in the 1846 Mexican-American War included Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant fighting side-by-side with Zachary Taylor and Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson. Then in 1861, this team of West Point graduates was split between Union and Confederacy, opposing one another in the Civil War. The war also saw almost one third of the Union Army officers resign to go fight for the South.
After reunification, the country had relative peace until war broke out in Europe in 1914, leading to World War I. During WWI, two new technologies were added to the battlefield: the tank and the airplane. So the Armored Cavalry and Army Air Corp were formed. Less than 30 years later, American’s Army was called upon once more to fight in the biggest war in modern history, World War II. At war’s end, the Army once again reorganized, this time breaking off the Army Air Corp into its own branch: the US Air Force. However, the Army wasn’t without aircraft. The helicopter had begun to emerge as a combat tool, in direct support of ground troops, so the Army kept its rotor wing aircraft under its command, where they remain today.
Since the end of Vietnam, the Army has served diligently in Operations Just Cause, Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom, and other conflicts around the world. Today, the Army consists of over 700,000 dedicated men and women divided into 28 divisions standing ready to defend our freedom.
Throughout American history, the Army has played a pivotal role in shaping the country.
Happy 242nd birthday, US Army!
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