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One winter day in December 1775, months after the battles at Concord and Lexington marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the nascent American military formally met its commander-in-chief. A group of Virginia rifleman found themselves in the middle of a massive snowball fight with a regiment of quick-talking New Englanders who ridiculed the strangely dressed Virginians in their “white linen frocks, ruffled and fringed.” The colonies were still strangers to each other at this point: The Declaration of Independence was months away, and the ragtag army representing the rebels was far from formally “American.” The meeting of nearly 1,000...

When a veteran or member of the armed forces dies, he or she is entitled to a ceremony that includes the presentation of a U.S. flag to a family member and a bugler blowing Taps. Most of the time, there is a three-volley rifle salute if requested by family members. But now, if the deceased served in the Air Force, the three-volley salute is not an option because the Air Force can no longer support riflemen for funeral services for veteran retirees. [....] “To me, without the 21-gun salute, it just does not make it complete a proper military burial,”...

The Army deployed 65 infantry divisions for the Second World War. Each was a small town with its own equivalents for community services plus eight categories of combat arms. Units such as artillery, engineering, and heavy weapons engaged the enemy directly. Yet of all categories, the foot soldier faced the greatest hazard with the least chance of reward. Except for the Purple Heart and the coveted Combat Infantryman’s Badge, recognition often eluded them because so few came through to testify to the valor of the many. The infantryman confronted the most dismal fate of all whose duty was uninterrupted by...

Trained to die Posted: June 3, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Military staffers are busier than PX cashiers on payday evaluating the lessons learned from the recent fireworks in Iraq. And that process is important. The stakes are too high not to get this long-term fight with terrorists dead right. A case will soon be made for smart hardware and weapons to at least partially replace the current level of active-duty soldiers. While the right smart stuff is, of course, the way to go, if Cold War submarines and fighters such as the F-22 aren't culled from the...