ROA - Department of Illinois

By Eric Peterson
epeterson@dailyherald.com
Posted Monday, August 06, 2007

Sunday was a time of remembrance and reflection for past and present members of the Army Reserve’s Arlington Heights-based 85th Division, as it was officially disbanded after 90 years.

Under a warm, yellow sun, the members of the retiring division assembled on the grounds of their headquarters for an inactivation ceremony honoring their history and that of their informal namesake, Gen. George A. Custer.

When the 85th Division was created Aug. 5, 1917 in Michigan, it was quickly nicknamed the Custer Division. Despite Custer’s famous defeat at the Battle of Little Big Horn, he was better known to the people of Michigan for his many victories during the Civil War.

The division has known many activations, relocations and temporary disbandings over its 90-year history. It’s been based in Detroit, Mississippi, Virginia, Springfield, Chicago and other places.

The division moved to its present home in Arlington Heights in 1984 and has made training support its specialty since 1999.


	Maj. Gen. Michael G. Corrigan, commanding officer of the Army Reserve 85th Division, salutes the colors during the inactivation ceremony for the division at its base in Arlington Heights. (Mark Black/Daily Herald)


	Tom Peacock, portraying Gen. George A. Custer, receives the cased colors of the 85th Army Reserve Division from Command Sgt. Maj. Paul Bianco to end the inactivation ceremony.(Mark Black/Daily Herald)

“We were training other units to deploy overseas,” Lt. Col. Paula Jones said.

In one sense, Sunday’s ceremony marked only a reorganization of the Army Reserve, rather than a thinning of ranks or the abandonment of its Arlington Heights base.

The property will continue to be used for different specialties, and many of the same reservists will still work there.

“The Army’s not getting any smaller, it’s just being restructured,” Jones said.

And looking back at the varied history of the 85th Division, there’s always a chance it could be called into duty once more.

“It’s not the end, it’s just a pause,” Jones said. “It could come back again.”

But retired Lt. Col. Scott Clark of Hoffman Estates felt the current restructuring made this more likely to be the final chapter of the 85th Division than any of its prior downtimes.

Clark was a member of the division from 1971 to 1999, during most of which he was also a teacher at Fenton High School in Bensenville.

“I’m right down the road, and I knew this was coming up,” Clark said. “I thought it would be neat to be here because I spent most of my career in the 85th Division.”

For Clark, the day was bittersweet.

“It’s just another phase of your life that you have to go through,” he said.

But for Maj. Gen. Michael G. Corrigan, commanding officer of the division for the past four years, the day did have some sadness.

Not only is he retiring next month after 38 years in the Army, but the weight of the division’s even longer history came home to him during the ceremony.

At the end, he handed the encased colors of the division to a General Custer impersonator on horseback, who rode off into the west.

“Ninety years of tradition, and all the things that we did … it’s hard to look away from,” Corrigan said.