Remarks by CSM Jeffrey J. Mellinger, 233d Army Birthday Ball

[Doc Burns]

Remarks by CSM Jeffrey J. Mellinger, 13th AMC CSM, 233rd Army Birthday Ball, Eskan Village, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 12 June 2008

Ambassador (Ford M.) Fraker (US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)
MG (Rhett) Hernandez (USMTM – SA)
CSM (Clarence M.) Keithley (USMTM – SA)
BG (Christopher) Tucker (PM – SANG Modernization Program)
SGM (James) Wafe (OPM-SANG)
COL (Willie) Braggs III (64th Air Expeditionary Group)
CMSgt (Pete) Glick (64th AEG)
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Cadets, TeufelHunds, Wingmen, Shipmates, friends and guests. Good evening!
It is indeed a pleasure to be here with you tonight and help celebrate the 233d birthday of the America’s Army – The Strength of the Nation.
On 14 June 1775 Congress authorized the formation of the Continental Army and the raising of ten companies of riflemen in addition to the existing 15,000 troops already formed in New York and Connecticut. Those 10 companies would each have a captain, 3 lieutenants, 4 sergeants, 4 corporals, a drummer (or bugler), 68 privates, and each would serve for a period of one year.

One of those companies was raised by Daniel Morgan. A poorly educated, hard-working man of considerable drinking and fighting ability, Morgan formed the Corps of Rangers, also known as Morgan’s Sharpshooters. Morgan and his actions served as a source for the fictional character of Benjamin Martin, aka Mel Gibson, in The Patriot, a motion picture released in 2000.

The fourteenth of June is also tied to a number of other historical or important events.

1777. The Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes - replacing the Grand Union flag.

1789 - Whisky distilled from maize is first produced by Reverend Elijah Craig, of……. Bourbon County, Kentucky.

1861 - Harpers Ferry was evacuated by rebels in the face of McClellan's advance.

1864 - Congress rules Black soldiers must receive equal pay.

1917 - General Pershing and his staff arrived in Paris during WW I.

1922 - President Harding, while dedicating the Francis Scott Key memorial in Baltimore, became the first U.S. president to use the radio for an address.

1937 - Pennsylvania became the first (and only) state of the United States to celebrate Flag Day officially as a state holiday.

1940 - A group of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first residents of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

1942 - Anne Frank begins to keep a diary.

1944 - Colonel Jimmy Doolittle’s B-29s conducted the first raid against mainland Japan, and Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle returns to France some four years after the Nazi occupation sent him into exile.

1954 - U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words "under God" to the United States' Pledge of Allegiance.

1962 – The New Mexico Supreme Court in the case of Montoya v. Bolack, 70 N.M. 196, prohibited state and local governments from denying Indians the right to vote because they lived on a reservation.

1971 - The New York Times begins printing extracts from top secret Pentagon papers covering the Vietnam War.

1985 - Lebanese Hezbollah Shiite terrorists hijacked TWA flight 847 shortly after take-off from Athens, Greece. It was during a stop in Beirut that the hijackers identified an American Navy diver, Steel Worker Second Class (SW2) Robert Stethem, among the passengers. Thinking him to be a Navy Seal, they beat him for hours, shot him in the right temple, and dumped his body out of the plane onto the tarmac.

I remember that footage, and I think of Robert often. Stethem was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. In 1994, the U.S. Navy launched the USS Stethem (DDG-63).

1987 – A baby boy is born in Meadville, Pennsylvania to Tom and Romayne McGinnis. In kindergarten, the boy drew a Soldier when asked to depict what he wanted to be when he grew up. On June 14th, 2004, the now seventeen year-old joined the Army. On December 4th, 2006, in Baghdad, Specialist Four Ross McGinnis dove on a hand grenade thrown inside the HMMWV he was the gunner for, using his body to absorb the lethal fragments.

The 14th of June.

In the two hundred and thirty-three years since the formation of the Continental Army, our Nation’s Soldiers have fought in 14 wars and over 170 campaigns from Lexington to Tientsin, Mexico to the Argonne, the Dominican Republic to Somalia, Afghanistan to Iraq, and yes, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Along the way, our Soldiers the one hundred and seventy-eight streamers on the Army flag. Many of you donated your blood, sweat and tears to help earn some of those streamers.
As we old Soldiers grow older and look back on our careers, we often wonder what shape we will leave our Army in, and wonder about the capabilities and dedication of those who follow us.

We have heard many times about the Nintendo generation, much, I suppose, as those in my early days heard about Baby-boomers or the VOLAR Army and how it was the end of the Army as the old-timers knew it.

But I tell you here tonight that we need not worry about our Army or our Warriors. Our Soldiers (and Marines, Sailors, Airmen and Coast Guardsmen) are tough, smart, dedicated and capable. You know it is true, because you helped make them that way.

We old dogs have passed on our skills and knowledge, as well as the pride of two hundred thirty-three years of dedicated service, to those who follow us. And you had better believe that as they serve they are always mindful of the great debt they must repay to those who went before them.
Think how hard Soldiers work while performing humanitarian missions to bring food, drinking water and medical aid to the storm-stricken, poor and oppressed.

Think of those who stood in our airports during the aftermath of September 11th, and how you felt safer knowing they were there.
And think of those who day after day put on nearly a hundred pounds of gear and get in their vehicles and travel the vast distances of Afghanistan and Iraq as they fight, provide aid and work to end terror and build a better world as they demonstrate the Strength of our Nation.

Somewhere as I speak, a Soldier is fighting for her life and for the lives of those around her. Somewhere else a Soldier is breaching a doorway, disarming an explosive, bandaging a wound, handing out soccer balls and pencils. Somewhere else a Soldier is using persuasion and leadership to encourage a soldier from a partner country to perform a task.

Somewhere else a Soldier is sending an email or writing a letter to his loved one.

And somewhere a Soldier writes about honor, like Specialist Chauncey Julius, as he completed an assignment for his Warrior Leader Class.

DURING MY LAST TOUR IN IRAQ, I WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR PICKING UP INCOMING SOLDIERS, OR SHOULD I SAY WARRIORS, AND TAKING THEM TO THE FLIGHT LINE. BUT THESE WARRIORS WERE DIFFERENT….IT WAS SOMETHING ABOUT THEM SO UNIQUE AND SPECIAL (WHICH) PLACED THEM ABOVE THE TOUGHEST OF SPECIAL FORCES TEAMS IN COUNTRY…. YOU SEE WHAT MADE THESE SOLDIERS I TRANSPORTED SO EXTRAORDIANARY WAS THE FACT THAT THEY WERE DECEASED. THESE WARRIORS SERVED UNTIL THEY COULDN’T SERVE ANYMORE……WHAT MANY CALL THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE.

INITIALLY I WAS ON EDGE ABOUT THIS ADDITIONAL DUTY, AFTERALL, I HAD DEAD BODIES IN THE BACK OF MY 5 TON, BUT AS MY MISSION LOAD INCREASED, SO DID MY HONOR FOR MY SPECIAL “V.I.P.â€

[Chiron]

This should read "1942" and "B-25".

1944 - Colonel Jimmy Doolittle’s B-29s conducted the first raid against mainland Japan, and Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle returns to France some four years after the Nazi occupation sent him into exile.

[GoldCoast]

Earlier this evening, we were reminded of the significance of the table set for those thousands of missing and unaccounted for.

Tonight and every night since they went missing, the families and comrades of those missing from Iraq think of them as well. They are:

LCdr (now Capt) Michael ‘Scott’ Speicher, 17 January 1991
SPC (now SGT) Ahmed K. Altaie, 23 October 2006
PVT Byron W. Fouty and SPC Alex R. Jiminez, 12 May 2007

Let us take another moment now to think of them.

Does anyone know if Matt Maupin was finally listed as KIA?

[GoldCoast]

Thanks. I was part of the search process while I was in Iraq in 2005. I'm going to go find out what I can about this. Appreciate it.