The Army Celebrates Its 250th Birthday, As LA Riots

"This anarchy will not stand," President Donald Trump told his Fort Bragg, North Carolina, audience of Green Berets, Rangers and 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers -- the disciplined cadre of America's XVIII Airborne Corps sitting in the grandstands.

The anarchy Trump condemned is/was in Los Angeles, on the west side of America's fruited plains. In LA, calculating rioters plundered stores, burned cars and attacked police, and demanded similar anarchy throughout America.

Why incite nationwide anarchy?

Suspend that pertinent question, for a moment.

Trump's Fort Bragg appearance was part of a weeklong celebration commemorating the 250th anniversary of the revolutionary creation of the American Army.

June 14, 1775. The Continental Congress authorized officers to enlist "expert riflemen" who would serve in the army of The United Colonies (U.C., not U.S.). Congress determined defeating crack British redcoats required a cadre of professionals -- soldiers better trained than local or state militiamen and available for extended duty throughout the colonies.

The congressional authorization makes the U.S. Army America's first true national organization and unified instrument of political authority. The first cadre enlisted for a year. The Revolutionary War ended in 1783. Soldiering is tough.

Trump's Fort Bragg speech acknowledged the Army's continual sacrifice for American freedom and order -- meaning providing safety for citizens from physical harm.

Two hundred and fifty years -- that's a quarter of a millennium. Yet European and Asian leaders still treat the U.S. like it's the new kid on the block.

But 250 years sends a message America is doing something right. Despite one of the planet's bloodiest civil wars, the U.S. is the world's oldest operational constitutional democratic republic. And I mean real republic operating on democratic political principles, not the fraud "democratic republics" of totalitarian communist, national socialist (Nazi, genuine Fascist) and Islamo-thug regimes.

Surviving 250 years demonstrates the brilliance of America's Constitution, a document that accounts for human frailties and provides mechanisms (amendments) to adjust in through time behind the shield of its military.

The shield has worked, and that's an achievement definitely worthy of celebration and a parade in Washington, D.C.

Which returns us to the suspended question. As I write this column, LA faces Night 5 of organized imitation insurrection. I wager that's precisely what we see, orchestrated violence camouflaged as rebellion.

Key questions real reporters should ask: Who bought the rioters gas masks, bulletproof vests, rock hammers, media-ready banners (with edgy messages) and the scores of attorneys prepared to bail out the violent jerks cops and National Guardsmen arrest?

Why stage an imitation insurrection? Answer: to ignite similar riots throughout America and replay 2020. Replay 2016. Heck, replay 1970, and the 1983 anti-nuclear war marches staged to stop the Reagan administration's response to the Soviet Union's deployment of intermediate range nuclear missiles in eastern Europe (a clear violation of strategic arms agreements).

We get the same "street script" every time. And the leftist anarchists blame their violence on everyone else.

Burning Los Angeles does distract American media from the Army's commemoration.

Did that figure in the 2025 insurrectionist calculations? It's another reasonable question. The rioters have a tactical villain. They blame ICE immigration enforcement operations in LA. ICE announced it would enforce national immigration laws in Los Angeles, a self-proclaimed sanctuary city.

However, in the U.S. there is no such political fabrication as a sanctuary from federal law. The Confederate States of America claimed they were a sanctuary, but the CSA lost -- to the Union Army.

The Union Army was the U.S. Army that remained loyal to the Constitution. A number of Union officers from rebel states kept their oath to the Constitution -- George Thomas of Virginia comes to mind.

Trump touched on a subject that combines Civil War issues with contemporary politics. Call it The Name Game. Leftist Democrats and faculty club nitwits insist on tearing down statues and renaming towns, mountains, sports teams and military bases. Why? They wish to damn and malign U.S. history. America is fatally flawed! There are no heroes! Destroy it all and build anew!

Nitwit nihilism is big on campus.

During the Biden administration, several Southern Army posts were renamed with scolding spite. As a rule, I oppose erasing history -- grow up -- but getting rid of Braxton Bragg and John Bell Hood made some sense. They were traitors and terrible generals. Henry Benning was an incompetent.

However, Forts Bragg and Benning were places respected by four generations of American infantrymen and special operations soldiers who trained on their ranges, lived in their barracks and left their gates to fight America's wars.

Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth revere U.S. history, appreciate soldier morale and understand media. So the classic last names have returned, now honoring heroic soldiers awarded Distinguished Service Crosses and Medals of Honor.

It's a populist policy the troops in the grandstands peaceably applaud.

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To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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