Celebrating a day a century in the making, the 1st Infantry Division took time June 8 - the 100th anniversary of the "Big Red One" - to recognize and remember the past 100 years with a division run and a Victory with Honors ceremony at Fort Riley.
The commemoration began at 6:30 a.m. with a four-mile division run around the historic post's Custer Hill. Thousands of 1st Inf. Div. and Fort Riley Soldiers ran the route, with Brig. Gen. Patrick Frank, 1st Inf. Div. and Fort Riley acting senior commander, in the lead.
"To start off our birthday here with a division run was exactly how the 1st Infantry Division wanted to start today," Frank said. "To have all of our Soldiers out here representing their formations - those legacy formations that have been a part of this division since 1917 - was the right way to start our birthday."
Frank said being a Big Red One Soldier on the division's milestone anniversary was unbelievable.
"To know all the Soldiers, the generations of Big Red One Soldiers that have gone before us, their contributions and service to the nation over that 100 years, and then the 5,000 Soldiers we've have currently deployed today across the globe, to include Maj. Gen. (Joseph) Martin and the division headquarters leading the fight against ISIS in Mosul, Iraq," Frank said, "it's pretty awesome to be a part of the 1st Infantry Division today."
The acting senior commander spoke again later that morning at the Victory with Honors ceremony.
"Today, on the eighth of June, 2017, as the nation's most storied division marks 100 years of service, there are 5,000 Big Red One Soldiers globally deployed," Frank told the crowd of Soldiers and supports at the ceremony. "Each of these 1st Infantry Division Soldiers will render a salute today and proudly state 'Duty First.' The response from the 1st Infantry Division officer returning the salute will be 'Victory.'"
Frank said this, the division's motto, is the essence of the Big Red One.
"Big Red One Soldiers are the driving force behind its history of battlefield victories," Frank said. "Soldiers' bravery and patriotic commitment to duty highlight every chapter in 1st Infantry Division history."
During the ceremony, members of the Commanding General's Mounted Color Guard, wearing historic uniforms from World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Operation Desert Storm and other conflicts the division has engaged in since its 1917 inception, hung 43 campaign streamers on the division colors representing those battles, and the Soldiers who fought and sacrificed in them.
"It was an incredible opportunity," said Sgt. Alycia Nabours, a trooper with the Commanding General's Mounted Color Guard who wore a Big Red One uniform from Operation Desert Storm during the ceremony. "It's something that I can carry with me, as far as pride, and know what it means to be part of a really good and historic unit."
The 1st Inf. Div. was initially constituted as the First Expeditionary Division in May 1917 before being officially organized in New York City on June 8, 1917, under the command of Brig. Gen. William L. Siebert. Though the Army had used temporary divisions since the Civil War, the Big Red One was the first divisional unit created to fight in World War I. The Big Red One is the first division in the U.S. Army to reach this milestone.
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