35 cents
VOL. 3/ISSUE 45
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2015
Florida celebrates 450 years of citizen soldiers
We will never forget
Patrick McCallister FOR VETERAN VOICE
patrick.mccallister@yahoo.com
Florida’s first muster of citizen soldiers was on Sept. 16, 1565. The Florida National Guard and Department of Military Affairs will celebrate the event and the heritage of citizen soldiers in St. Augustine, the Ancient City, on the 450th anniversary. “It’s an open house and a commemoration ceremony called The First Muster,” Alison Simpson, historian for the Florida Department of Military Affairs, said. The ceremony will start at 4 p.m. at Patriot Field, next to the St. Francis Barracks, 82 Marine St., St. Augustine. The Barracks is the joint headquarters of the Florida Army National Guard and Air National Guard. Simpson said weeks after Admiral and Governor Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine, he prepared troops to attack Fort Caroline on the banks of the St. Johns River in what is now Jacksonville. Caroline was a Huguenot encampment and it had days earlier attempted a siege on the new Spanish settlement. A storm thwarted that attempted attack. Before taking about 500 soldiers north, Menendez called up about 50 civilian men ages 18 to 45 to defend the new settlement from attacks if needed. Those attacks could have come from the French or Timacua. As things turned out, that first group of citizen soldiers, militia never had to lift arms in service. But if called upon to do so, those civilians had no choice but to become soldiers. “It was part of Spanish law,” Simpson said. She said during the time the English and Spanish had laws allowing the military to press certain civilian men into service when needed. Spain had laws against citizens born on territorial soils serving in its regular military. They were, however, required to serve in militias if called upon during emergencies. Simpson said under Spanish rule, Florida militias
See GUARD page 6
Photo by U.S. Navy Journalist 1st Class Mark D. Faram Smoke pours from the southwest corner of the Pentagon Sept. 11, 2001, after a hijacked commercial airliner crashed into the building. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attack by terrorists on the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and aboard the airplanes used in the attack. See 911 story on page 4.