Us and them, part II

By lex, on July 19th, 2007

It was hard, yesterday, to get through the “us” part gracefully. I’m searching partly to understand who we are as a people now, having come to the tentative conclusion that we are not who we used to be.

My uncle was a doctor in the Army, went ashore in Anzio, was awarded the Bronze Star for service there. I was in his office as a young lad and saw his service certificate. It said that he had been a part of the “Army of the United States,” a sufficiently strange article that I asked him what it meant, why it didn’t say “United States Army.” He replied that the US Army was the standing force into which, in times of crisis, the rest of the country mustered. All men of military age were a part, or a potential part, of the Army of the United States.