Military Star Lighter 2nd Cavalry Regiment Chrome Lighter for Sale

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Military Star Lighter 2nd Cavalry Regiment Chrome Lighter For Sale

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Military Star Lighter 2nd Cavalry Regiment Chrome Lighter:
$19.95

The 2nd Cavalry Regiment, also known as the 2nd Dragoons,[1] is an active Stryker infantry and cavalry regiment of the United States Army. The Second Cavalry Regiment is a unit of the United States Army Europe and Africa, with its garrison at the Rose Barracks in Vilseck, Germany. It can trace its lineage back to the early part of the 19th century. Lieutenant General Ben Lear, commander of Second Army, speaks to troopers of the 10th Cavalry during a visit to Fort Riley, 28 May 1941. (National Archives)

One of the least known U.S. Army formations of World War II was the 2d Cavalry Division, which enjoyed the dubious distinction of being inactivated twice. Initially, it combined a black brigade with a white brigade, before it was reorganized as an all-black division in 1943. Its short history offers an interesting look at the racial policies of the segregated Army during the early 1940s.

In World War I, cavalry had not played a decisive role in the static trench warfare on the Western Front, but postwar cavalry advocates pointed to its effectiveness in the mobile campaigns conducted in the Middle East to justify the horse’s continued relevance in modern warfare. In 1921, the Army constituted two cavalry divisions, each one authorized about 7,500 men assigned to two cavalry brigades (each with two regiments), mounted engineer and horse field artillery battalions, and other smaller support units. The 1st Cavalry Division was organized in the Southwest, with its headquarters and one brigade at Fort Bliss, Texas, and its other brigade at Douglas, Arizona, but the 2d Cavalry Division existed only on paper.

African Americans had served in the segregated Regular Army since 1866, and the four black regiments—9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry—had distinguished themselves in combat during the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American and Philippine Wars, and the Mexican Punitive Expedition. The black regulars had not fought in World War I, however, and as the postwar Army was greatly reduced, “the prevalent racism made black units the obvious choice for cuts.” The Army considered disbanding the black regiments, but since Congress had created them, The Judge Advocate General opined that only legislative action could inactivate them. Nevertheless, enlistment of new black recruits ceased, and by 1924, African Americans comprised less than four percent of the Army’s strength, less than half their representation within the population.

The training of the under-strength black regiments was also neglected. When the first squadron of the 10th Cavalry was stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1931, its personnel were used to perform housekeeping duties—messengers, painters, cooks, and grooms for the horses used by the officers assigned to the Command and General Staff College. The black press criticized the fact that black troopers seemed to be doing everything but training for their wartime missions. In 1935, the Chicago Defender published a story headlined “10th Cavalry is Curry-comb Boy for U.S.” Even The Cavalry Journal published an epitaph for the regiment, noting that its “passing as a combat regiment is an event of note and will come as a shock to many distinguished officers and soldiers who have served with it.”

By 1940, as the Army responded to the war in Europe and Asia by expanding its active strength to 1.4 million men, African American leaders such as A. Philip Randolph and Walter White pushed for appropriate black representation in all branches of the armed forces, as well as an end to segregation. Just before that year’s election, White also urged black voters to send telegrams to President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking that Colonel Benjamin O. Davis—one of only two black Regular Army officers—be promoted to brigadier general. Davis’s name was among the twenty colonels on the brigadier general’s promotion list that was released in October. The list’s appearance less than two weeks before the presidential election caused many to charge that Davis’s selection was Roosevelt’s attempt to win African American votes for reelection to an unprecedented third term.