ARMY: Bluebiood Units

The Army gets a bright blue blood transfusion this week. The historic old Light Infantry Blues of Richmond, Va. put their fancy-dress uniforms into moth balls, were inducted into the Army, prepared to start a year’s training at Fort Meade as the First Battalion 176th Infantry. In the next two weeks two more noted socialite units will be inducted: Philadelphia’s First Troop City Cavalry and Manhattan’s swank Seventh Regiment (207th Coast Artillery). Clad in regulation olive drab, they will be in camp by the end of the month.

Typical of the Guard’s blueblood units are the gentlemen from Philadelphia, organized in 1774 (mostly by members of the Gloucester Fox Hunting Club) to help fight the British. Known simply as “the City Troop” to Philadelphians, it claims to be the oldest U. S. military organization with a record of continuous service. Membership is by election only, and its rolls are almost synonymous with the Philadelphia social register. Many of its men are descendants of the Troop’s founders.

The splendor of its full-dress regalia (see cut) is produced by a combination of Wellington boots, buckskin breeches, blue blouses with silver buttons, yards of braid, bearskin-topped helmets. For the annual formal banquets in its Armory, the Troop (now Troop A, 104th Reconnaissance Regiment) has its own china and silver (made for its 100th anniversary in 1874), adorned with its helmet and sabretache.

But not even the severest critic of pomp & circumstance could accuse the Troop of being mere dress-up soldiers. On the staff of its guidon are silver bands for service in major battles from Trenton and Princeton in the Revolution to the Meuse-Argonne in World War I. Regular National Guard enlistment is for three years; City Troopers enlist for seven. Rookies find advancement slow, the selection of officers meticulous. No man can hope to become a corporal before eight years, a sergeant before ten. John C. Groome Jr., a coal company president who was the Troop’s captain until he was recently made an Army major, has served 24 years.

After the Troop took part in the First Army Maneuvers near Ogdensburg, N. Y. last August, an Army inspector reported: “The officers are well qualified … to properly command appropriate units in combat. . . . Practically all non-commissioned officers could take their places as officers . . . without additional training.

The Troop is ready for immediate combat service.” To an Army badly in need of officers to train its rookies, such a unit is the answer to prayer.