{"id":315,"date":"2012-03-17T23:19:28","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T03:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=315"},"modified":"2024-12-03T16:21:36","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T21:21:36","slug":"st-paddys-with-the-red-white-and-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=315","title":{"rendered":"St Paddy’s with the Red White and Blue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linda Burton posting from Sierra Vista, Arizona while traveling from Austin, Texas to Phoenix, Arizona<\/em>\u00a0— I have a grandson in the US Army. Brett is tall, good-looking, smart, and someone you\u2019d be proud to know. He\u2019s adapted well to Army life; is excited about the opportunities ahead. He did his basic at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, and now is posted to Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona for most of this year. I detoured my Austin-to-Phoenix route to pay him a visit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fort Huachuca is home of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM)\/9th Army Signal Command. It\u2019s also the headquarters of the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS), the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC), and the Electronic Proving Ground (EPG).<\/p>\n

Sounds confidential, and it is. Brett already has \u201ca bunch of\u201d security clearances, and couldn\u2019t tell me much about the things he\u2019s learning there. The base is 15 miles north of the Mexican border, adjacent to the town of Sierra Vista, at the foot of the Huachuca Mountains. \u201cHuachuca\u201d comes from an obscure Indian language describing a \u201cplace of thunder.\u201d There was a light dusting of snow still visible on the north side of the mountains when I arrived. The winds were strong and more snow was, maybe, on the way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I picked up Brett at his \u201cdorm\u201d \u2013 he shares a room, it\u2019s much like college life, he said. \"\"<\/a>He showed me his classrooms, the family housing where some of his friends live, the on-base elementary school, the ball fields and batting cages, the commissary, even the dental office. It\u2019s self-contained and neat, pretty in its sparseness. \"\"<\/a>And though it is miles and miles from most of the world, it\u2019s not too far from I-HOP, Texas Roadhouse, the Cineplex, and Sierra Vista\u2019s mall.<\/p>\n

A stop by my room to visit the cats (Brett gave Jack to me when he was so tiny he fit in our hands, the only male of Cleo\u2019s litter), then we celebrated St Paddy\u2019s Day with Roadhouse steaks. After-dinner shopping at the mall resulted in a suit, a handsome pin-stripe gray, blue shirt to set it off, not for any special occasion but because, Brett said, \u201cSometimes you just want to look nice.\u201d \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Brett pointed out the Buffalo Soldiers on a sign, telling me a little of the history of the Fort. A product of the Indian Wars of the 1870s and 1880s, the site was selected because it had fresh running water, an abundance of trees, excellent observation in three directions, and protective high ground for security against Apache tactical methods. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Camp Huachuca was redesignated a fort in 1882. It was a supply base for the Geronimo campaign, retained after his surrender because of continuing border troubles. In 1913, the 10th Cavalry \u201cBuffalo Soldiers\u201d arrived, joining General John J. Pershing in the 1916 expedition into Mexico. During World War I, it was assigned the mission of guarding the United-States-Mexico border. Today, its training and purpose focus on borders stretching all around the world.<\/p>\n

Lots more on the interesting history of Fort Huachuca and its mission today, read at http:\/\/www.huachuca.army.mil\/site\/Visitor\/index.asp?pages=History<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda Burton posting from Sierra Vista, Arizona while traveling from Austin, Texas to Phoenix, Arizona\u00a0— I have a grandson in the US Army. Brett is tall, good-looking, smart, and someone you\u2019d be proud to know. He\u2019s adapted well to Army life; is excited about the opportunities ahead. He did his basic at Fort Jackson in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4586],"tags":[174,173,172,176,175,177,159],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6600,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions\/6600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}