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Happy Birthday (Take note Mushi)
I'd like to wish a happy 200th birthday to West Point.
"...the bicentennial of an institution that has produced some of the best soldiers and greatest leaders our nation has ever known: the United States Military Academy at West Point. On March 16, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson signed into law a bill authorizing the "establishment of a military academy to be located at West Point in the State of New York."
It's likely there were complaints about expenses back in 1790, when the Congress was looking for $11,085 to buy the land on which the "National Military Academy" was to be built. It had originally been the site of a Continental Army redoubt -- deemed by George Washington to be "the key to the continent." Despite Benedict Arnold's treasonous attempt to turn the place over to the British, they never succeeded, and it remains the oldest continuously occupied military post in the country.
But more important than the terrain, playing fields, buildings or parade grounds are the legions of extraordinary graduates that West Point's hallowed halls have produced. The Military Academy's alumni rolls boast the kind of leaders that even revisionist historians cannot successfully denigrate. Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Braxton Bragg, "Blackjack" Pershing, Douglas MacArthur, Omar Bradley, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, Mark Clark, "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, Carl Spaatz, Hap Arnold and Norman Schwarzkopf all marched on "The Plain" at West Point, where Baron Von Stuben once drilled the fledgling American Army.
West Point not only produces great combat leaders, but as the oldest engineering college in the country it has also graduated some of America's greatest builders, explorers and scientists. George Washington Goethals, Class of 1880, built the Panama Canal. Leslie Groves directed the Manhattan Project and built the bombs that ended World War II. The New York City water supply system, the Capitol dome and the Library of Congress were all designed and built by West Point grads. Fifteen astronauts -- including Buzz Aldrin, Mike Collins, Frank Borman and Ed White -- were cadets. "
Copied in part from an article by Oliver North.
Whether you're Army or not, soldier or not, bear in mind that this institution has played a major factor in the developing history of our nation.
SZ
"...the bicentennial of an institution that has produced some of the best soldiers and greatest leaders our nation has ever known: the United States Military Academy at West Point. On March 16, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson signed into law a bill authorizing the "establishment of a military academy to be located at West Point in the State of New York."
It's likely there were complaints about expenses back in 1790, when the Congress was looking for $11,085 to buy the land on which the "National Military Academy" was to be built. It had originally been the site of a Continental Army redoubt -- deemed by George Washington to be "the key to the continent." Despite Benedict Arnold's treasonous attempt to turn the place over to the British, they never succeeded, and it remains the oldest continuously occupied military post in the country.
But more important than the terrain, playing fields, buildings or parade grounds are the legions of extraordinary graduates that West Point's hallowed halls have produced. The Military Academy's alumni rolls boast the kind of leaders that even revisionist historians cannot successfully denigrate. Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Braxton Bragg, "Blackjack" Pershing, Douglas MacArthur, Omar Bradley, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, Mark Clark, "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, Carl Spaatz, Hap Arnold and Norman Schwarzkopf all marched on "The Plain" at West Point, where Baron Von Stuben once drilled the fledgling American Army.
West Point not only produces great combat leaders, but as the oldest engineering college in the country it has also graduated some of America's greatest builders, explorers and scientists. George Washington Goethals, Class of 1880, built the Panama Canal. Leslie Groves directed the Manhattan Project and built the bombs that ended World War II. The New York City water supply system, the Capitol dome and the Library of Congress were all designed and built by West Point grads. Fifteen astronauts -- including Buzz Aldrin, Mike Collins, Frank Borman and Ed White -- were cadets. "
Copied in part from an article by Oliver North.
Whether you're Army or not, soldier or not, bear in mind that this institution has played a major factor in the developing history of our nation.
SZ
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