LATHAM, N.Y. - The New York National Guard will mark the 378th birthday of the National Guard Saturday, Dec. 13 with a traditional military cake cutting at New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs headquarters Monday, Dec. 15.
The actual Guard birthday is Saturday, Dec. 13 but the event will be marked Monday because it is a work day.
WHO: New York's adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Patrick A. Murphy, representing the New York National Guard's most senior member, alongside Airman James McPartlin, one of the newest members of the Air National Guard. McPartlin, 17, from West Sand Lake, New York, enlisted in September as part of the 109th Airlift Wing in Scotia.
WHAT: Commemoration of the National Guard's 378th birthday. The National Guard is the oldest armed service in the United States, predating the American Revolution and tracing its lineage back to the colonial militias created in the 1600s.
WHERE: New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs Headquarters, 330 Old Niskayuna Road, Latham, NY 12210.
WHEN: 1 p.m. Monday, Dec. 15, 2014.
Members of the media interested in covering this event should contact the Division of Military and Naval Affairs Public Affairs Office at 518-786-4581 for access to this secure facility.
BACKGROUND:
The National Guard, today composed of the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard, traces its birthday back to Dec. 13, 1636, when the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law establishing formal militia companies in the colony. These companies were made up of all adult males older than 16 and were expected to meet and train in military skills regularly.
In New York, the first citizen-Soldiers were members of the Burgher Guard, organized by the Dutch East Indian Company in 1640 to help protect New Amsterdam from their English neighbors in Massachusetts and Virginia or from hostile natives. After New Amsterdam became the English colony of New York in 1665 a militia modeled on the system used in Massachusetts and other English colonies was put in place.
Some notes from New York National Guard history include:
• New York gave the country the term National Guard for its militia forces when the 2nd Battalion, 11th Regiment of the New York Militia renamed themselves the National Guard to honor the Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of the American Revolutionary War who had commanded a force called the "Guard de National" in the early days of the French Revolution.
• The 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry was portrayed in the 1940 movie "The Fighting 69th" starring Jimmy Cagney, and Pat O'Brien. The movie was based on the unit's service in World War I.
• The New York Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division was given its nickname "The Rainbow Division" during World War I by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur, then a colonel, was charged with organizing a division of National Guard troops from across the country to deploy to France in 1917. He described the division as reaching across the country "like a rainbow."
• The band of the New York National Guard's 369th Infantry Regiment, an African-American unit originally formed as the 15th New York, is credited with introducing jazz music to Europe during World War I. The 369th became known as the Harlem Hellfighters.
• The oldest Air National Guard unit in the nation is part of the New York Air National Guard. The 102nd Rescue Squadron of the 106th Rescue Wing traces its history back to the 1st Aero Company organized in the New York National Guard in 1908 as a balloon unit.
• The Soldiers of the New York National Guard's 105th Infantry Regiment faced the largest Japanese "Banzai" attack of the Second World War July 7, 1944, on the Island of Saipan. The 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 105th Infantry had 650 men killed and wounded but killed more than 4,300 Japanese soldiers. Three regimental Soldiers earned the Medal of Honor posthumously that day.
• The New York National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division served in Iraq in 2005 and was the first National Guard division headquarters to deploy to a combat zone since the Korean War in 1953.
Citizen-Soldiers of the militia and National Guard have fought in all of America's wars, from King Philips War against Native Americans in the New England Colonies in 1675 to the current war in Afghanistan today.