NEW AMERICAN TRUTH: November 2007

Since Veteran’s Day is this month - and we at New American Truth fully support all honorably discharged service veterans - we felt it would be appropriate to put together a collection of articles focusing on each branch of the military services. Each “piece” will have a short history of that particular branch of service and will have some personal comments from a veteran of that branch.

As you read through these brief articles you should contemplate a couple of things:

1) If you’re a service veteran for a particular branch, now is the time to stop and remember what your service time was like. Think about the highs and the lows and remember the pride you felt when you finished basic training.

2) Think about, and remember with respect, those you served with. There are certainly men and women in every branch of service that you may not get along with, but everyone who wears or ever wore an American military uniform deserves recognition.

3) Consider the sacrifices made by our military service members - and not just those alive today. Think back to the late 1700s when sacrifices were being made; when our freedom and liberty was being secured. Think about the more than 200 years of service that has been performed since then and all those who have sacrificed so that our country could remain the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Finally, we encourage each of you to reach our your hand, offer a handshake and say, “Thank you” to any service member you know. The mainstream media and plenty of other organizations in the United States today offer these fine men and women criticism or insult. Take just a few seconds out of your day to let them know you appreciate them and what they have done - and continue to do. Without them you might be reading this in German... or Japanese... or something besides English. Say THANK YOU!

Kevin Lee Miller

The Continental Army was born on June 14th, 1775 and placed under the command of General George Washington. After the Revolutionary War though the Army was quickly disbanded. The Continental leadership had good reason to distrust standing armies the served under the authority of government control. The Army was born again as the Legion of the United States in 1791 because of the continuing conflict with American Indians. Between the end of the Revolutionary War and 1791, America’s sole source of ground combat troops was state militias.

In the early 1800s America fought in two Barbary Wars in North Africa. Our Army’s performance, along with the United States Navy and the Marine Corps, proved that the United States could effectively fight far from our own shores.

Between 1815 and 1860 the U.S. Army engaged in a long series of skirmishes and small battles with American Indians as settlers steadily moved west across the continent. As a result of the Mexican-American war, a victory for the United States, the territories of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming and New Mexico were secured.

From 1861 through 1865 our country suffered through the mostly costly war we’ve ever participated in: The Civil War. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war. When the Civil War was over the armies had to unite once again to continue the fight to protect settlers in the on-going movement of the growing American population into the center of the country and further on to the west coast.

In all the major wars of the 20th century – and now into the 21st century – the Army has played a key role. Literally millions of men and women have served our country wearing the uniform of an American Soldier: that of the U.S. Army. As each branch of service has its own preferred designation, “soldier” is often applied to any serviceman or woman, but applies particularly to the Army service members. The Air Force has Airmen – even though they don’t all serve in the air. The Navy has seamen, and virtually all of them serve at some point in their career on the sea. The Marine Corps has Marines – the only service branch to name their members with the name of the organization. The Army has soldiers.

From 1950 through 1953 our soldiers fought in Korea to keep South Korea from being taken over by North Korea. As early as 1959 our country had put soldiers into Vietnam with the numbers growing through 1965 when the fight against the communist North Vietnam started in earnest. The withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam started in 1973 and was completed in 1975.

The 1980s were largely a time of reorganization for the Army as it transitioned into an all volunteer force – as it is today. Things remained relatively peaceful although the Army did participate in the successful invasion of Panama (Operation Just Cause) and Grenada (Operation Urgent Fury). Then, in 1991, Iraq invaded the small country of Kuwait and America went to protect an ally.

During the 1990s the Army kept busy with many U.N. Peacekeeping missions and the realization arose that most deployments were no longer to open field or undeveloped areas like the battlefields of Vietnam. Instead, our soldiers fight more often in cities and urban areas, requiring new tactics.

All my life I knew that I wanted to serve in uniform. When I was in high school I clearly remember the Iran Hostage Crisis – as we remembered the hostages every morning and counted the days. I remember thinking, “We should be invading that country to release and rescue those hostages. Where is the military?” Of course, at the grand old age of sixteen I barely had a conception of international politics. What made a big impression on me was that I knew I never again wanted to hear about Americans being taken and held by a foreign government or in a foreign land. Can you say “naïve”?

When I graduated from high school in 1982 the Iran Hostage Crisis was more than a year in the past. Ronald Reagan was President. I had my choice of a couple colleges… and instead I enlisted in the United States Army. I had plenty of reasons that I could voice to my parents, but the bottom line – the absolute raw truth – was that I wanted to be a person who fought against the kind of people who would take diplomats hostage. I wanted to be one of the people who went and showed the bad guys that they couldn’t mess with America.

I reported for Basic Training in October ’82 and was one of the test subjects for using trains to transport recruits instead of planes. I enjoyed a 19 hour ride down to beautiful Anniston, Alabama. A gray bus picked up the group of us who had ridden the train down. Our greeting at Ft. McClellan wasn’t overly abusive, but there was something of a reality check when the Sergeant who greeted us yelled loud enough to shake the windows and told us we had five seconds to be off HIS bus.

In processing wasn’t so bad… except when the medics giving shots didn’t hold the compressed air injectors still. If they moved them it cut your skin. I remember being issued more stuff than I thought I could carry and ended up with two duffles strapped to my body – one in front and one in back. When we had spent almost a week in processing, getting all of our issue, shots, haircuts, etc. we were shipped over to our actual basic training unit. The barracks were brand new. An all female training company was in the building next door. It was a miserable eight weeks seeing women every day and not even being allowed to say HI.

As I recently told someone else, “The best part of basic training is remembering it.” It was sometimes fun to do, but mostly it was a mental and physical challenge that, according to the drill sergeants, you could just never meet. No matter how well you did, they always demanded better. At the time it was easy to think, “Geez, nothing is ever good enough for this guy.” It would be years later before I’d realize that they were simply pushing me to see how good I could get.

I remember all the fun stuff like the gas chamber, bivouac, marching (drill and ceremony), classes that I sometimes had to stand up to stay awake in and more. The chow hall was brand new and I loved the food. It was some of the best food I’d ever had and there was plenty of it. Of course, time to eat was limited, but if you didn’t talk – we waste so much time on idle and meaningless conversation – you could get a decent meal in.

The platoon bay I lived in for that eight weeks was shared amongst 52 recruits. The latrine was at one end and the day room was at the other. Every man pulled fire guard one hour each night in a rotation. That meant I pulled fire guard about once each week. “Lights out” was from nine pm to about five am (give or take each morning depending on the scheduled activities). If you got fire guard for the first shift (9 to 10) or the last (4 to 5) then you could still get a decent night’s sleep – and we were ALWAYS tired. If you got fire guard any other shift your sleep was going to be interrupted in such a way to insure that you wouldn’t sleep well. We all learned to deal with it.

I remember qualifying with my M16 as well as familiarization training with M60s, the Government Model 1911 .45ACP pistol (still my favorite today) and hand grenades. We actually qualified with the rifle, pistol and hand grenades. I’ll never forget the guy in my training unit who was an “all star” high school pitcher on his baseball team. He threw the grenade like it was a fast ball instead of lobbing it like we were taught. It hit a mannequin in the head and knocked it off.

Some things will always stick with me. I’ll never forget my Platoon’s Drill Sergeant. Back then he seemed so old and wise. Now I look back and realize that he was probably only in his mid-twenties. It was so long ago and parts of it still seem like it was just yesterday. I was so proud to be a soldier and since then it has come to mean even more. Being a veteran puts me in what I consider to be a very special and unique group of people. We come from all walks of life and fill a host of different positions in society. But all of us have something in common that non-veterans may never understand: we stood up; we took the oath; we faced the challenge; we didn’t quit. It’s something to be proud of.