A year ahead of America’s 250th birthday — or semiquincentennial, to use a word you may have seldom heard, but likely will soon — the Army is celebrating its own, with military balls nationwide and a “big, beautiful parade” in Washington.
In Michigan, the Arsenal of Democracy Chapter of the Association of the United States Army is planning a June 13 birthday bash at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit to celebrate the nation’s oldest service branch.
Charles Cogger, the chapter president and a retired Army officer, said the association annually celebrates the Army’s birthday, but this year, in recognition of the 250th year, it is going to be even bigger and more significant.
But more than an anniversary, the celebrations are also a preview of what Americans are likely to see next year as the nation highlights the July 4, 1776, signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The document is, of course, America’s birth certificate.
Although we all know that leading up to any birth, a lot happens.
In addition to the Army birthday parties, at least one semiquincentennial event — which involved a tie-in of communities nationwide named Concord, including a village in Michigan — has already taken place.
Earlier this year, to commemorate the battle in Concord, in which Americans resisted British efforts to quash rebellion and sparked the Revolutionary War, the town held a festival and parade.
As for the ball in Detroit, which the nonprofit Association of the United States Army is sponsoring, it will be styled in the tradition of a military ball and, so far, has attracted hundreds of people throughout the Midwest.
The ball is also on the eve of the D.C. parade, the same day 250 years ago that the Second Continental Congress formed the Continental Army, which represented the Thirteen Colonies, and then, after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the United States.
‘This We’ll Defend’
Over the past 250 years, the American Army has transformed from what it called “a handful of unorganized and ill-equipped militiamen” into what many now consider to be the world’s “most powerful military.”
After the Battles of Lexington and Concord — later and more poetically referred to in the “Concord Hymn” as the “shot heard ’round the world” — the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to create a single army to defeat the British.
It unanimously selected George Washington to be commander in chief.
Washington’s commission spelled out that the new army would defend “American liberty” and repel “hostile invasion,” ideas that are the basis for troop rallying cries back then and the Army’s motto now: “This We’ll Defend.”
To showcase America’s military might, the Army is expected to roll tanks and other armored vehicles through D.C.’s streets.
Abrams tanks were loaded last week onto rail cars at Fort Cavazos in Texas. Each one weighing about 140,000 pounds, which the Army noted was “a feat of logistics in itself” to simply get them to Washington for the event.
News reports put the parade’s estimated cost at $25 million to $45 million.
Overall, the Army’s parade plans call for 28 tanks, 6,700 soldiers, 50 helicopters, 34 horses, two mules and a dog, the New York Times reported Tuesday. And in contrast to Donald Trump’s first term, the Pentagon is no longer opposing it.
Resistance to the parade, the Times reported, was to keep politics out of the armed forces.
But the Army is now calling the parade, which will be combined with a day-long festival on the National Mall, a chance to see “our soldiers,” “our leaders” and “world-class force on full display in our nation’s capital.”
And Trump, who turns 79 on June 14, described the D.C. event on “Meet the Press” as a “big, beautiful parade,” adding the coincidence is “not necessarily” about his birthday, but “it’s a very important day.”
On Monday, he boasted that the parade would top the Olympics and World Cup.
Lexington and Concord
Planning for America’s semiquincentennial, the halfway point of a quincentennial — 500th anniversary — started almost a decade ago with the Semiquincentennial Commission Act, which authorized commemorative coins, stamps, and events.
Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston, S.C., and New York are planning celebrations.
One of the first events was a re-enactment of the moonlit ride by a 40-year-old silversmith, who on April 18, 1775, warned that the British were coming. It was a planned alert that included lantern signals and memorialized, years later, in a well-known poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
The British came, indeed, which led the next day to the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which triggered the war for independence, which also is how Concord, Massachusetts, outside Boston — and indirectly, Concord, Michigan — were involved in the celebrations.
Concord, Massachusetts, history teacher Rob Morrison visited nearly 100 other cities, towns and villages named Concord, including the one in Jackson County, and in March, retired journalist Ken Wyatt wrote about Morrison’s plans.
Then, on April 19, the date of the first military campaign of the American Revolutionary War, representatives from many of the communities Morrison visited met in Massachusetts to march in one of the first semiquincentennial parades.
Wyatt — who was reporting for the Recorder, the Michigan village’s weekly — told the Free Press he was invited to the event in Massachusetts and hoped to represent Concord, Michigan, but unfortunately was unable to attend.
Last week, Stellantis brands — Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram — announced a deal with America250, the bipartisan organization planning celebrations, to be the automotive sponsor and launched a video campaign, “America Made Us.”
And that brings us back to the Army’s birthday.
Even though it’s ahead of the nation’s milestone birthday, it also, in a way, is part of it, because without an American Army to defend the colonies against British efforts to subdue them, there, of course, wouldn’t be a United States.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
If you go
The 250th birthday ball in Detroit is from 5-midnight, June 13, and will be held at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit. Tickets are for sale for $178 each, $85 for active duty military, online at https://www.tickettailor.com/events/ausaaod/1539421.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit to host Army’s 250th birthday ball ahead of ‘big, beautiful’ parade in D.C.
Reporting by Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
