Does your family have a history of military service?

I am descended from men who fought in the American revolution; the civil war; the first and second world wars; Korea, and Vietnam. I served during the Cold War, and my brother in the first gulf war. Now my young nephew is a staff sergeant in the Army.

Like any other immigrant family that has been 360 years here in a rather tempestuous part of the world, we have a few exemplars.

Captain John Peck Rathbun: was John Paul Jones's First Mate, later commanded the unit that took the English garrison at Nassau.

Major Henry Reed Rathbone (pictured): wounded by John Wilkes Booth while trying to prevent the assassination of Lincoln.

My family has had a Soldier or Marine in service to this country since the Civil War. (Well, in the case of the Civil War, in service to a traitorous regime.) Every generation has had at least one member serving. I'm proud to carry on that tradition, and I am honored to be the first officer in the family. My grand father, a retired Army NCO, was so proud of me on my commissioning day that he kept repeating, "You're going to be a somebody in this man's Army. Yes, Sir, you're going to be a somebody!" Very cool