Pancho Villa Expedition
The Pancho Villa Expedition—now known in the United States as the Mexican Expedition, but referred to as the "Punitive Expedition, U. S. Army"—was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa from March 14, 1916, to February 7, 1917, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920; the expedition was launched in retaliation for Villa's attack on the town of Columbus, New Mexico, was the most remembered event of the Border War. The declared objective of the expedition by the Wilson administration was the capture of Villa. Despite locating and defeating the main body of Villa's command, responsible for the raid on Columbus, U. S. forces were unable to achieve Wilson's stated main objective of preventing Villa's escape. The active search for Villa ended after a month in the field when troops sent by Venustiano Carranza, the head of the Constitutionalist faction of the revolution and now the head of the Mexican government, resisted the U.
S. incursion. The Constitutionalist forces used arms at the town of Parral to resist passage of a U. S. Army column; the U. S. mission was changed to prevent further attacks on it by Mexican troops and to plan for war in the eventuality it broke out. When war was averted diplomatically, the expedition remained in Mexico until February 1917 to encourage Carranza's government to pursue Villa and prevent further raids across the border. Trouble between the United States and Pancho Villa had been growing since October 1915, when the United States government recognized Villa's rival and former ally Venustiano Carranza as head of the government of Mexico; the U. S. provided rail transportation through the United States, from Eagle Pass, Texas to Douglas, for the movement of more than 5,000 Carrancista forces to fight Villa at the Battle of Agua Prieta. Feeling betrayed, Villa began attacking U. S. their property in northern Mexico. On November 26, 1915, Villa sent a force to attack the city of Nogales and in the course of the ensuing battle, engaged with American forces before withdrawing.
On January 11, 1916, sixteen American employees of the American Smelting and Refining Company were removed from a train near Santa Isabel and summarily stripped and executed. Brigadier General John J. Pershing, commanding the district headquartered at Fort Bliss, received information that Villa with a new force was on the border and about to make an attack that would force the United States to intervene, embarrassing the Carranza government. Raids were so commonplace, that the rumor was not seen as credible, but at about 4:00 am on March 9, 1916, Villa's troops attacked Columbus, New Mexico, Camp Furlong, the U. S. Army post there, where four troops of the 13th Cavalry Regiment had been stationed since September 1912. Ten civilians and eight soldiers were killed in the attack, two civilians and six soldiers wounded; the raiders burned the town, stole horses and mules, seized machine guns and merchandise, before fleeing back to Mexico. However, Villa's soldiers had suffered considerable losses, with at least sixty-seven dead and dozens more wounded.
Many of the casualties were inflicted when the machine gun troop of the 13th Cavalry led by 2nd Lt. John P. Lucas set up its Hotchkiss M1909 Benét–Mercié machine guns under fire along the north boundary of Camp Furlong, firing over 5,000 rounds apiece using the glow of burning buildings to illuminate targets. About thirteen of Villa's wounded died of their wounds, five wounded Villistas taken prisoner by the Americans were tried and hanged for murder. Local lore in Columbus holds that the attack may have been caused by a merchant in Columbus who supplied Villa with arms and ammunition. Villa is said to have paid several thousand dollars in cash for the weapons, but the merchant refused to deliver them unless he was paid in gold, giving "cause" for the raid; the next day, acting on the recommendations of the commanders of his cavalry regiments, Southern Department commanding general Frederick Funston recommended an immediate pursuit in force into Mexico. U. S. President Woodrow Wilson concurred, designating Pershing to command the force and releasing a statement to the press: An adequate force will be sent at once in pursuit of Villa with the single object of capturing him and putting a stop to his forays.
This can and will be done in friendly aid to the constituted authorities in Mexico and with scrupulous respect for the sovereignty of that Republic. Pershing assembled an expeditionary force consisting of cavalry and horse artillery, the cavalry units armed with M1909 machine guns, M1903 Springfield rifles, M1911 semi-automatic pistols. On March 15, 1916, organized into a provisional division of three brigades, the expedition crossed the border into Mexico to search for Villa, marching in two columns from Columbus and Culberson's Ranch; the 2nd Provisional Cavalry Brigade reached Colonia Dublán after dark on March 17, where Pershing established the main base of operations for the campaign. The 1st Aero Squadron, included in the expedition for liaison duties and aerial reconnaissance on the orders of United States Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, departed San Antonio, Texas, on March 13 by rail with eight Curtiss JN3 airplanes and flew the first aerial reconnaissance of the area from Columbus on March 16, the day after it arrived.
The entire squadron flew to the advanced camp at Colonia Dublán on March 19–20, losing two aircraft in the process. Pershing sent the 7th Cavalry south just after midnight on March 18 to begin the p
Moro Rebellion
The Moro Rebellion was an armed conflict between the Moro people and the United States military during the Philippine-American War. The word "Moro" is a term for Muslim people who lived in the Southern Philippines, an area that includes Mindanao and the neighboring Sulu Archipelago; the Moros have a 400-year history of resisting foreign rule. The violent armed struggle against the Filipinos, Americans and Spanish is considered by current Moro leaders as part of the four centuries-long "national liberation movement" of the Bangsamoro; the 400-year-long resistance against the Japanese and Spanish by the Moros persisted and developed into their current war for independence against the Philippine state. A "culture of jihad" emerged among the Moros due to the centuries-long war against the Spanish invaders; the United States claimed the territories of the Philippines after the Spanish–American War. The ethnic Moro population of the southern Philippines resisted both Spanish and United States colonization.
The Spaniards were restricted to a handful of coastal garrisons or Forts and they made occasional punitive expeditions into the vast interior regions. After a series of unsuccessful attempts during the centuries of Spanish rule in the Philippines, Spanish forces occupied the abandoned city of Jolo, the seat of the Sultan of Sulu, in 1876; the Spaniards and the Sultan of Sulu signed the Spanish Treaty of Peace on July 22, 1878. Control of the Sulu archipelago outside of the Spanish garrisons was handed to the Sultan; the treaty had translation errors: According to the Spanish-language version, Spain had complete sovereignty over the Sulu archipelago, while the Tausug version described a protectorate instead of an outright dependency. Despite the nominal claim to the Moro territories, Spain ceded them to the United States in the Treaty of Paris which signaled the end of the Spanish–American War. Following the American occupation of the Northern Philippines during 1899, Spanish forces in the Southern Philippines were abolished, they retreated to the garrisons at Zamboanga and Jolo.
American forces took control over the Spanish government in Jolo on May 18, 1899, at Zamboanga in December 1899. The Moros resisted the new American colonizers; the Spanish and Philippine governments have all been fought against by the Muslims of Sulu and Mindanao. John Hay, the American Secretary of State, asked the ambassador to Ottoman Empire, Oscar Straus in 1899 to approach Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to request that the Sultan write a letter to the Moro Sulu Muslims of the Sulu Sultanate in the Philippines telling them to submit to American suzerainty and American military rule. Despite the sultan's "pan-Islamic" ideology, he aided the American forces because he felt no need to cause hostilities between the West and Muslims. Abdul Hamid wrote the letter, sent to Mecca where two Sulu chiefs brought it home to Sulu, it was successful, the "Sulu Mohammedans... refused to join the insurrectionists and had placed themselves under the control of army, thereby recognizing American sovereignty."
John P. Finley wrote that:After due consideration of these facts, the Sultan, as Caliph caused a message to be sent to the Mohammedans of the Philippine Islands forbidding them to enter into any hostilities against the Americans, inasmuch as no interference with their religion would be allowed under American rule; as the Moros have never asked more than that, it is not surprising, that they refused all overtures made, by Aguinaldo's agents, at the time of the Filipino insurrection. President McKinley sent a personal letter of thanks to Mr. Straus for the excellent work he had done, said, its accomplishment had saved the United States at least twenty thousand troops in the field. If the reader will pause to consider what this means in men and the millions in money, he will appreciate this wonderful piece of diplomacy, in averting a holy war. President McKinley did not mention the Ottoman Empire's role in the pacification of the Sulu Moros in his address to the first session of the Fifty-sixth Congress in December 1899 since the agreement with the Sultan of Sulu was not submitted to the Senate until December 18.
After the American government informed the Moros that they would continue the old protectorate relationship that they had with Spain, the Moro Sulu Sultan rejected this and demanded that a new treaty be negotiated. The United States signed the Kiram-Bates Treaty with the Moro Sulu Sultanate which guaranteed the Sultanate's autonomy in its internal affairs and governance, including article X that guaranteed preservation of slavery, while America dealt with its foreign relations, in order to keep the Moros out of the Philippine–American War. Once the Americans subdued the northern Filipinos, the Bates Treaty with the Moros was adjusted by the Americans through removal of article X and they invaded Moroland. After the war in 1915, the Americans imposed the Carpenter Treaty on Sulu. First Republic forces in the southern Philippines were commanded by General Nicolas Capistrano, American forces conducted an expedition against him in the winter of 1900–1901. On March 27, 1901, Capistrano surrendered.
A few days General Emilio Aguinaldo was captured in Luzon. This major victory in the war in the north allowed the Americans to devote more resources to the south, they began to push into the interior of Bangsamoro. On August 31, 1901, Brig. Gen. George Whitefield Davis replaced Kobbe as the commander of the Department of Mindanao-Jolo. Davis adopted a conciliatory policy towards the Moros. American forces under his command had standing orders to buy Moro produce when possible and to have "heralds of amity" precede all scouting exp
World War II
World War II known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries; the major participants threw their entire economic and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China, it included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, the only use of nuclear weapons in war. Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with China by 1937, though neither side had declared war on the other. World War II is said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Finland and the Baltic states. Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, the fall of France in mid 1940, the war continued between the European Axis powers and the British Empire. War in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the long Battle of the Atlantic followed. On 22 June 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history; this Eastern Front trapped most crucially the German Wehrmacht, into a war of attrition. In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States as well as European colonies in the Pacific. Following an immediate U. S. declaration of war against Japan, supported by one from Great Britain, the European Axis powers declared war on the U.
S. in solidarity with their Japanese ally. Rapid Japanese conquests over much of the Western Pacific ensued, perceived by many in Asia as liberation from Western dominance and resulting in the support of several armies from defeated territories; the Axis advance in the Pacific halted in 1942. Key setbacks in 1943, which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, Allied victories in the Pacific, cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned toward Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in Central China, South China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands; the war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender under its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies. Tribunals were set up by fiat by the Allies and war crimes trials were conducted in the wake of the war both against the Germans and the Japanese. World War II changed the political social structure of the globe; the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The Soviet Union and United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia.
Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic expansion. Political integration in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities and create a common identity; the start of the war in Europe is held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred and the two wars merged in 1941; this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935; the British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the fo
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed forces or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. In its broadest sense, the term "officer" refers to commissioned officers, non-commissioned officers, warrant officers. However, when used without further detail, the term always refers to only commissioned officers, the more senior portion of a force who derive their authority from a commission from the head of state; the proportion of officers varies greatly. Commissioned officers make up between an eighth and a fifth of modern armed forces personnel. In 2013, officers were the senior 17% of the British armed forces, the senior 13.7% of the French armed forces. In 2012, officers made up about 18% of the German armed forces, about 17.2% of the United States armed forces. However, armed forces have had much lower proportions of officers. During the First World War, fewer than 5% of British soldiers were officers. In the early twentieth century, the Spanish army had the highest proportion of officers of any European army, at 12.5%, at that time considered unreasonably high by many Spanish and foreign observers.
Within a nation's armed forces, armies tend to have a lower proportion of officers, but a higher total number of officers, while navies and air forces have higher proportions of officers since military aircraft are flown by officers. For example, 13.9% of British army personnel and 22.2% of the RAF personnel were officers in 2013, but the army had a larger total number of officers. Having a command authority is one requirement for combatant status under the laws of war, though this authority need not have obtained an official commission or warrant. In such case, those persons holding offices of responsibility within the organization are deemed to be the officers, the presence of these officers connotes a level of organization sufficient to designate a group as being combatant. Commissioned officers receive training as leadership and management generalists, in addition to training relating to their specific military occupational specialty or function in the military. Many advanced militaries require university degrees as a prerequisite for commissioning from the enlisted ranks.
Others, including the Australian Defence Force, the British Armed Forces, Nepal Army, the Pakistani Armed Forces, the Swiss Armed Forces, the Singapore Armed Forces, the Israel Defense Forces, the Swedish Armed Forces, the New Zealand Defence Force, are different in not requiring a university degree for commissioning—although a significant number of officers in these countries are graduates. In the Israel Defense Forces, a university degree is a requirement for an officer to advance to the rank of lieutenant colonel; the IDF sponsors the studies for its majors, while aircrew and naval officers obtain academic degrees as a part of their training programmes. In the United Kingdom, there are three routes of entry for British Armed Forces officers; the first, primary route are those who receive their commission directly into the officer grades following completion at their relevant military academy. In the second method, an individual may gain their commission after first enlisting and serving in the junior ranks, reaching one of the senior non-commissioned officer ranks, as what are known as'direct entry' or DE officers.
The third route is similar to the second. LE officers, whilst holding the same Queen's commission work in different roles from the DE officers. In the infantry, a number of warrant officer class 1s are commissioned as LE officers. In the British Army, commissioning for DE officers occurs after a 44-week course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for regular officers or the Army Reserve Commissioning Course, which consists of four two-week modules for Army Reserve officers; the first two modules may be undertaken over a year for each module at an Officers' Training Corps, the last two must be undertaken at Sandhurst. For Royal Navy and Royal Air Force officer candidates, a 30-week period at Britannia Royal Naval College or a 24-week period at RAF College Cranwell, respectively. Royal Marines officers receive their training in the Command Wing of the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines during a gruelling 15-month course; the courses consist of not only tactical and combat training, but leadership, management and international affairs training.
Until the Cardwell Reforms of 1871, commissions in the British Army were purchased by officers. The Royal Navy, operated on a more meritocratic, or at least mobile, basis. Commissioned officers are the only persons, in an armed forces environment, able to act as the commanding officer of a military unit. A superior officer is an officer with a higher rank than another officer, a subordinate officer relative to the superior. Non-commissioned officers, to include naval and coast guard petty officers and chief petty officers, in positions of authority can be said to have control or charge rather than command per se. Most officers in the Armed Forces of the United States are commissioned through one of three major commissioning programs: United States Military Academy Unit
American entry into World War I
The American entry into World War I came in April 1917, after more than two and a half years of efforts by President Woodrow Wilson to keep the United States out of the war. Apart from an Anglophile element urging early support for the British, American public opinion reflected that of the president: the sentiment for neutrality was strong among Irish Americans, German Americans, Scandinavian Americans, as well as among church leaders and among women in general. On the other hand before World War I had broken out, American opinion had been more negative toward Germany than towards any other country in Europe. Over time after reports of atrocities in Belgium in 1914 and following the sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania in 1915, American citizens came to see Germany as the aggressor in Europe. Wilson, as president, made all the key decisions over foreign policy. While the country was at peace American banks made huge loans to Britain and France, which were used to buy munitions, raw materials, food from across the Atlantic.
Until 1917, Wilson made minimal preparations for a land war and kept the United States Army on a small peacetime footing, despite increasing demands for enhanced preparedness. He did, expand the United States Navy. In 1917, with Russia experiencing political upheaval, with Britain and France low on credit, Germany appeared to have the upper hand in Europe, while the Ottoman Empire, Germany's ally, held on to its territory in modern-day Iraq and Israel. At this point Germany decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, its goal was to starve Britain into surrender, although it realized that this would certainly bring the United States into the war. Germany made a secret offer to help Mexico regain territories lost in the Mexican–American War in an encoded telegram known as the Zimmermann Telegram, intercepted by British intelligence. Publication of that communique outraged Americans just as German U-boats started sinking American merchant ships in the North Atlantic. Wilson asked Congress for "a war to end all wars" that would "make the world safe for democracy", Congress voted to declare war on Germany on April 6, 1917.
On December 7, 1917, the U. S. declared war on Austria-Hungary. U. S. Troops began arriving on the Western Front in large numbers in 1918. Britain used its large navy to prevent cargo vessels entering German ports by intercepting them in the North Sea between the coasts of Scotland and Norway; the wider sea approaches to Britain and France, their distance from German harbours and the smaller size of the German surface fleet all made it harder for Germany to reciprocate. Instead, Germany used submarines to lie in wait for, sink, merchant ships heading for enemy ports; the United States insisted on maintaining the traditional rights of ships registered in neutral countries and protested against American ships being intercepted or sunk: the British seized American ships for supposed violations, while the Germans sank them — without warning, in violation of international law that said sailors must be allowed an opportunity to reach their lifeboats. After several violations, Germany stopped this practice but in early 1917 she decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, in the hope that this would starve out the British before the Americans could make any effective military retaliation.
The British Royal Navy stopped the shipment of most war supplies and food to Germany. Neutral American ships that tried to trade with Germany were seized or turned back by the Royal Navy who viewed such trade as in direct conflict with the Allies' war efforts; the strangulation came about slowly, because Germany and its allies controlled extensive farmlands and raw materials. It was successful because Germany and Austria-Hungary had decimated their agricultural production by taking so many farmers into their armies. By 1918, German cities were on the verge of starvation. Germany considered a blockade. "England wants to starve us", said Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the man who built the German fleet and who remained a key advisor to the Kaiser Wilhelm II. "We can play the same game. We can bottle her up and destroy every ship that endeavors to break the blockade". Unable to challenge the more powerful Royal Navy on the surface, Tirpitz wanted to scare off merchant and passenger ships en route to Britain.
He reasoned that since the island of Britain depended on imports of food, raw materials, manufactured goods, scaring off a substantial number of the ships would undercut its long-term ability to maintain an army on the Western Front. While Germany had only nine long-range U-boats at the start of the war, it had ample shipyard capacity to build the hundreds needed. However, the United States demanded that Germany respect the international agreements upon "freedom of the seas", which protected neutral American ships on the high seas from seizure or sinking by either belligerent. Furthermore, Americans insisted that the drowning of innocent civilians was barbaric and grounds for a declaration of war; the British violated America's neutral rights by seizing ships. Wilson's top advisor, Colonel Edward M. House commented that, "The British have gone as far as they could in violating neutral rights, though they have done it in the most courteous way"; when Wilson protested British violations of American neutrality, the British backed down.
German submarines torpedoed ships without causing sailors and passengers to drown. Berlin explained that submarines were so vulnerable that they dared not surface near merchant ships that might be carrying guns and whic
West Point, New York
West Point is the oldest continuously occupied military post in the United States. Located on the Hudson River in New York, West Point was identified by General George Washington as the most important strategic position in America during the American Revolution; until January 1778, West Point was not occupied by the military. On January 27, 1778, Brigadier General Samuel Holden Parsons and his brigade crossed the ice on the Hudson River and climbed to the plain on West Point to intercept Lt. Major Roldan Kramer and from that day to the present, West Point has been occupied by the United States Army, it comprises 16,000 acres including the campus of the United States Military Academy, called "West Point". It is a Census Designated Place located in the Town of Highlands in Orange County, New York, located on the western bank of the Hudson River; the population was 6,763 at the 2010 census. It is part of the New York–Newark–Jersey City, NY–NJ–PA Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT–PA Combined Statistical Area.
West Point, was a fortified site during the Revolutionary War. Picked because of the abnormal S-curve in the Hudson River at this point, the defenses of West Point were designed by Polish military engineer Tadeusz Kościuszko, who served as a brigadier general in the Continental Army, it was manned by a small garrison of Continental Army soldiers from early in 1776 through the end of the war. A great iron chain was laid across the Hudson at this point in 1778 in order to prevent British Navy vessels from sailing further up the Hudson River, but it was never tested by the British; the site comprised multiple redoubts, as well as Fort Putnam, situated on a high hill overlooking the river. Named after its builder, Revolutionary War general and engineer Rufus Putnam, the fort is still preserved in its original design. In the most infamous act of treason in American history, General Benedict Arnold attempted to turn the site over to the British Army in 1780 for a bribe consisting of a commission as a Brigadier General in the British Army and a cash reward of £20,000.
However, Arnold's plot failed. Arnold received a decreased cash reward of £6,000 but was commissioned as a Brigadier General in the British Army. After the conclusion of the American Revolution, West Point was used as a storage facility for cannon and other military property used by the Continental Army. For two months in 1784 the United States Army consisted of only about 80 soldiers under the command of Brevet Major John Doughty at West Point; the United States Military Academy was established at West Point in 1802 and is the nation's oldest service academy. West Point has the distinction of being the longest continuously occupied United States military installation. In 1937, the West Point Bullion Depository was constructed. West Point is located at 41° 23′ N 73° 58' W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 25.1 square miles. West Point and the contiguous village of Highland Falls, New York, are on the west bank of the Hudson River. West Point has a humid continental climate, with four distinct seasons.
Summers are humid, while winters are cold with moderate snowfall. The monthly daily average temperature ranges from 27.5 °F in January to 74.1 °F in July. The average annual precipitation is 50.5 inches, distributed evenly throughout the year. Extremes in temperature range from 106 °F on July 22, 1926 down to −17 °F on February 9, 1934; as of the census of 2010 there were 6,763 people, 685 households residing in the CDP. The population density was 293.4 per square mile. There were 1,044 housing units at an average density of 42.9/sq mi. The racial makeup of the CDP was 82.31% White, 9.09% African American, 0.50% Native American, 3.35% Asian, 0.15% Pacific Islander, 1.64% from other races, 2.96% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.56% of the population. There were 685 households out of which 75.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 87.8% were married couples living together, 4.8% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.7% were non-families. 5.4% of all households were made up of individuals and none had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older.
The average household size was 3.69. The age distribution is 16.7% under the age of 18, 51.2% from 18 to 24, 23.0% from 25 to 44, 3.8% from 45 to 64, 0.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 21 years. For every 100 females, there were 207.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 259.7 males. All of these statistics are typical for military bases; the median income for a household in the CDP was $56,516, the median income for a family was $56,364. About 2.0% of families and 2.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.6% of those under age 18 and none of those age 65 or over. Painter Edith Hoyt was born in West Point. Author Gore Vidal Hudson Valley portal Military of the United States portal Visit Orange County West Point, NY "West Point, N. Y.". The New Student's Reference Work. 1914
Legion of Honour
The Legion of Honour is the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits, established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte and retained by all French governments and régimes. The order's motto is Honneur et Patrie, its seat is the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur next to the Musée d'Orsay, on the left bank of the Seine in Paris; the order is divided into five degrees of increasing distinction: Chevalier, Commandeur, Grand officier, Grand-croix. During the French Revolution, all of the French orders of chivalry were abolished, replaced with Weapons of Honour, it was the wish of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul, to create a reward to commend civilians and soldiers. From this wish was instituted a Légion d'honneur, a body of men, not an order of chivalry, for Napoleon believed that France wanted a recognition of merit rather than a new system of nobility. However, the Légion d'honneur did use the organization of the old French orders of chivalry, for example the Ordre de Saint-Louis; the insignia of the Légion d'honneur bear a resemblance to those of the Ordre de Saint-Louis, which used a red ribbon.
Napoleon created this award to ensure political loyalty. The organization would be used as a façade to give political favours and concessions; the Légion d'honneur was loosely patterned after a Roman legion, with legionaries, commanders, regional "cohorts" and a grand council. The highest rank was not a Grand Cross but a Grand aigle, a rank that wore the insignia common to a Grand Cross; the members were paid, the highest of them generously: 5,000 francs to a grand officier, 2,000 francs to a commandeur, 1,000 francs to an officier, 250 francs to a légionnaire. Napoleon famously declared, "You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led... Do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning? Never; that is good only for the scholar in his study. The soldier needs glory, rewards." This has been quoted as "It is with such baubles that men are led." The order was the first modern order of merit. Under the monarchy, such orders were limited to Roman Catholics, all knights had to be noblemen.
The military decorations were the perks of the officers. The Légion d'honneur, was open to men of all ranks and professions—only merit or bravery counted; the new legionnaire had to be sworn into the Légion d'honneur. It is noteworthy that all previous orders were crosses or shared a clear Christian background, whereas the Légion d'honneur is a secular institution; the badge of the Légion d'honneur has five arms. In a decree issued on the 10 Pluviôse XIII, a grand decoration was instituted; this decoration, a cross on a large sash and a silver star with an eagle, symbol of the Napoleonic Empire, became known as the Grand aigle, in 1814 as the Grand cordon. After Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804 and established the Napoleonic nobility in 1808, award of the Légion d'honneur gave right to the title of "Knight of the Empire"; the title was made hereditary after three generations of grantees. Napoleon had dispensed 15 golden collars of the Légion d'honneur among his family and his senior ministers.
This collar was abolished in 1815. Although research is made difficult by the loss of the archives, it is known that three women who fought with the army were decorated with the order: Virginie Ghesquière, Marie-Jeanne Schelling and a nun, Sister Anne Biget; the Légion d'honneur was visible in the French Empire. The Emperor always wore it and the fashion of the time allowed for decorations to be worn most of the time; the king of Sweden therefore declined the order. Napoleon's own decorations were captured by the Prussians and were displayed in the Zeughaus in Berlin until 1945. Today, they are in Moscow. Louis XVIII changed the appearance of the order. To have done so would have angered the 35,000 to 38,000 members; the images of Napoleon and his eagle were removed and replaced by the image of King Henry IV, the popular first king of the Bourbon line. Three Bourbon fleurs-de-lys replaced the eagle on the reverse of the order. A king's crown replaced the imperial crown. In 1816, the grand cordons were renamed grand crosses and the legionnaires became knights.
The king decreed. The Légion d'honneur became the second-ranking order of knighthood of the French monarchy, after the Order of the Holy Spirit. Following the overthrow of the Bourbons in favour of King Louis Philippe I of the House of Orléans, the Bourbon monarchy's orders were once again abolished and the Légion d'honneur was restored in 1830 as the paramount decoration of the French nation; the insignia were drastically altered. In 1847, there were 47,000 members, yet another revolution in Paris brought a new design to the Légion d'honneur. A nephew of the founder, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, was elected president and he restored the image of his uncle on the crosses of the order. In 1852, the first recorded woman, Angélique Duchemin, an old revolutionary of the 1789 uprising against the absolute monarchy, was admitted into the order. On 2 December 1851, President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte staged a coup d'état with the help of the armed forces, he made himself Emperor of the French one year on 2 December 1852, after a successful plebiscite.
An Imperial crown was added. During Napoleon III's reign, the first American was admitted
United States
United States Army
General
Infantry Branch
