It’s back to the future in a manner of speaking for the Kansas Army National Guard Second Combined Arms Battalion, 137th Infantry Unit this weekend.
The unit will be redesignated as the First Battalion, 635th Armor Regiment. It’s a move that makes sense to Command Sergeant Major Steve Harmon. He says Emporia has had an infantry, armor and engineering unit for better than 40 years, and the Army started having the unit deployed as a combined force around 2005.
The unit was listed as the 1-635th in the 1980s and 1990s before redesignating.
During KVOE’s 7:05 am news Thursday, Harmon said Emporia and Lyon County have had a strong unit presence dating back to shortly after the Civil War, with soldiers serving in World Wars I and II. Harmon says the area has a rich history of citizen-soldiers that are still helping the state through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The roughly 90-minute “casing the colors” ceremony will take place at Fort Riley. The Kansas Army National Guard will air the ceremony at 10 am Saturday on Facebook.
