The Mother of All Reenlistment Ceremonies :-)

Bob Krumm reports the following good-news item from Baghdad:


How are you spending your 4th of July holiday? While most Americans probably slept, 1,215 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines raised their right hands and committed to a combined 5,500 years of additional service during the largest reenlistment ceremony in the history of the American military. Beneath a large American flag which dwarfed even the enormous chandelier that Saddam Hussein had built for the Al Faw Palace, members of all services, representing all 50 states took the oath administered by Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Forces Iraq.

Historian William Forstchen, quoted by Newt Gingrich, said that this was one of the largest, but not the largest of mass reenlistment ceremonies.

"Lump in throat time. ... I suspect it is not the largest single re-enlistment in American history. In the spring of 1864, tens of thousands of Union volunteers, who had signed up for three years service in 1861 were up for discharge.

"They had served with honor and distinction, they had every honorable reason to take their discharges and go home, but if they did so, the cause of the Union would be in jeopardy. They knew with utter certainty what awaited them if they signed up again ... and what might be lost if they did not. Over 30,000 of them reenlisted ... that action, as much as any other, saved the Union."