The 56th Field Artillery Command was a brigade size element of the United States Army. The unit was constituted in 1942 with the last period of active service being 1970 through 1991. It was the only unit to field the nuclear Pershing missile system. This unique mission required an almost "Super Brigade" status which the Army accommodated in several regards. Their inactivation in June 1991 was in some measure a consequence of their own success. The culmination of their duties was to act, as directed, in accordance with the INF Treaty, as the United States eliminated her intermediate range nuclear forces. The Command also provided some personnel to participate in supervising the Soviets as they upheld their agreements as well. Fifteen systems were exempted by the INF Treaty, made inoperable, and authorized for historical reference, such as a museum display. The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution exhibits such a display, for example.
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Famous quotes containing the words field, artillery and/or command:
“The woman ... turned her melancholy tone into a scolding one. She was not very young, and the wrinkles in her face were filled with drops of water which had fallen from her eyes, which, with the yellowness of her complexion, made a figure not unlike a field in the decline of the year, when the harvest is gathered in and a smart shower of rain has filled the furrows with water. Her voice was so shrill that they all jumped into the coach as fast as they could and drove from the door.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentiment in mankind; so that the power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea over land and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look upon as a fine meter of civilization.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Under bare Ben Bulben’s head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.
No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman pass by!”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)