Email
Print
FeedBattle Ready
Myths and mystery aside, the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry boasts
an enduring, centuries-old connection to America’s past—and it’s still making
an impact today.
(page 1 of 4)
Capt. Anselm T.W. Richards, Honorary Capt. Dennis Boylan and Sgt. Thomas Werner are counting captains on the marble placards in the breezeway beneath the castle-like 23rd Street Armory of the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry (FTPCC). As if reading Braille, they move their fingers over the inscribed names and dates of service, delineating the leadership of the nation’s oldest mounted military unit.
In February 2007, Richards took over as the 49th commander of the troop. From 1983 to 1986, Boylan was the 41st. The 19th captain (1896-1910), John C. Groome was also the first state police commissioner, naming his men troopers in honor of FTPCC.
With an estimated 2,400 members over its 234-year history, this unique U.S. Army National Guard unit has served continuously in every major conflict since the Revolutionary War. It remains the only U.S. military unit that elects its members and officers—each of them assigned a sequential number.
A fixture at historic and ceremonial activities in Philadelphia and on the Main Line, FTPCC’s mounted warriors—arrayed in opulent uniforms and dazzling helmets that date from the early 19th century—automatically confer authenticity on any event, For years, members were drawn strictly from the area’s social elite. Now, in a time of ongoing global conflict, the organization has become more egalitarian in its efforts to recruit the ultimate citizen soldier, one who volunteers service and pools his pay to support the group.
The troop is likely to be busy this Veterans Day, but in the interest of national security, its members can’t comment on the present or future. Out of respect, they won’t discuss or confirm the total number of active troopers. Among the myths that surround FTPCC is that it’s an exclusive, upper-crust re-enactors club. Nothing could be further from the truth. These days, stories about FTPCC are more likely to appear in the news pages than the society pages.
After 9-11, the troop wrote to then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge and offered its services, as was protocol during the Civil War and the Revolution. “It continued a precedent,” says Boylan, the 53-year-old director of market operations for the Philadelphia Board of Trade.
The letter initially led to a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia in 2002—the troop’s first call-up since the Korean War 50 years before—then a tour of duty in Iraq in 2005 and 2006. Others have recently served in Germany, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Jordan and Guantanamo Bay.
Many troopers have spent this year deployed at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. As a matter of security, the Army doesn’t announce dates for troop movements, but they’re eligible to return as soon as this month. Others who didn’t go to the Sinai are being selected to deploy with the 56th Brigade to Iraq before the end of the year.
On their first tour in Iraq, troopers were stationed in the Al Anbar province northwest of Baghdad. It was flat-out survival of the fittest.
“Every day, we questioned our own mortality,” says the 38-year-old Richards, who was a platoon leader.
