Put on your boots, boots, boots
And parachute-chute-chutes
We’re going up, up, up
And coming down, down, down
We’re All American and proud to be
For we’re the soldiers of liberty
Some ride their gliders to the enemy
Others are sky paratroopers
We’re All American and fight we will
‘Til all the guns of the foe are still
Airborne from skies of blue
We’re coming through, let’s go
Put on your boots, your parachutes
Get all those gliders ready to attack today
For we’ll be gone into the dawn
To fight them all the 82nd way
AMERICA’S GUARD OF HONOR
Where is the prince who can afford to cover his country with troops for its defense as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might not, in many places, do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought to repel them ?
Benjamin Franklin, 1784
C. Intelligence Report
The following study of German operations against the Allied beachhead at Anzio, from 22-01-44 to 31-05-44, is based on the available journals and records of the German X and XIV Armies. It should be noted that the facts and opinions expressed in the text reflect the German point of view, all statements on Allied troop strength, are German estimates. Records of the German Luftwaffe were not available, therefore the details of air action against the beachhead has not been included. The expressions like Panzer (tanks, armored), Jager (light infantry), and Panzer Grenadier (armored infantry), have been left in the German for purposes of clarification.
I was on the bus to Camp Wolters, and I put my duffel down and went to take a seat and the bus driver said, Get out of that seat, nigger, and get in the back where you belong ! Now, if it had gone to fisticuffs, which it could have, I probably would have gotten killed. They probably would have hanged me — I mean, Texas was pretty bad then.
Colonel Daniel Van Voorhis took a cadre of 175 Officers and Enlisted Men from Fort Eustis to Fort Knox in February 1932 and established a Provisional Armored Car Platoon. This was based on an earlier effort, but was predicated on a new Cavalry Regiment which was published that year. Also published, but never implemented, was a Cavalry Division which reflected the – then – unnatural assimilation of machines into the Horse Cavalry. Van Voorhis’s cadre and platoon became the kernel for the 7th Cavalry Brigade, which went active on March 1, 1932 at Fort Knox. At first, it was nothing more than a headquarters detachment and the Armored Car Platoon. On Jan 3, 1933, the 1st Cavalry Regiment was relieved from assignment to the 1st Cavalry Division, and was moved from Fort A D Russell to Fort Knox. The earlier Mechanized Platoon was incorporated into the new Regimental TO & E (Table of Organization & Equipment), and the result was the 1st Cavalry Regiment (Mechanized), which went active on January 16, 1933.
