I raised the 17th United States Infantry, 1st Battalion because I had grown weary of seeing regiments offer little beyond the same weekly routine: assemble for an engagement, take a place in line, dismiss, and wait for the next call. There is no dishonor in such service, but I believed a Regiment could offer its men something more lasting.
My design for the 17th is simple: a man's service should not vanish when the field is left behind.
Here, a Soldier's name is entered upon the rolls and his service is kept as a proper military record. Musters, promotions, schools of instruction, qualifications, appointments, honors, and notable service are preserved by Headquarters. The Quartermaster issues and accounts for arms and accoutrements. The School of Instruction keeps the record of training. Officers and non-commissioned officers are charged with duties proper to their stations. What a man does in the Regiment is meant to leave a history behind him.
Yet books, orders, and returns are not what I wish to define the 17th.
The men are.
I believe firmly in a Regiment led in its daily duties by its non-commissioned officers. If a man wears stripes in the 17th, those stripes ought to carry weight. An NCO should know his Soldiers, instruct them, correct them, encourage them, lead drill, develop new men, and be trusted to keep his section fit for service. Officers establish the direction and bear the responsibility of command; the sergeants make the Regiment work.
Advancement is treated in the same manner. I would sooner have ten dependable men who have earned their stations than fifty carrying titles of no consequence. Rank is not a favor granted for merely remaining around long enough. Every stripe, appointment, and commission should bring with it a duty to perform and a standard to uphold.
Above all else, I want quality immersion—not the pretense that we have somehow awakened in the year 1862, but an earnest effort to borrow the character, organization, duties, paperwork, instruction, and battlefield practice of the Regular Army and turn them into a deeper experience in War of Rights.
Schools of instruction, weapons qualification, General Orders, issued property, field service, promotions, honors, NCO leadership, and battlefield tactics should not exist as separate novelties. They should all belong to one Regiment and one record of service.
I am not trying to raise the largest Regiment upon the field.
I am trying to raise one worth belonging to.
I want a Private to enlist today and, months from now, open his record and see where he began, what schools he completed, what arms were entrusted to him, what battles he answered for, what honors he earned, and what responsibility he was eventually trusted to carry.
The 17th is still growing, and we shall improve it as we go. But the purpose will remain the same: we will not simply copy what has already been done.
We mean to build a Regiment of our own.
If you have spent time in War of Rights and seek more than another name upon another roster, I invite you to give the 17th United States Infantry, 1st Battalion a fair look.
Come take your place among the Regulars.