[Vision2020] Buffalo Soldeirs Reburied

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the August 3, 2009 edition of the Army Times.

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Buffalo Soldeirs Reburied

Until a few years ago, the memory of three African­-American soldiers was
buried beneath the sandy desert in New Mexico.

With some investigating and modern forensics, gov­ernment archaeologists
excavated the remains and identified them as Army Pvts. Thomas Smith,
David Ford and Levi Morris. They were among the famed Buf­falo Soldiers
who joined the Union Army to fight Con­federate troops.

On July 28, more than 130 years after their deaths, they were finally to
be laid to rest with full mili­tary honors at the Santa Fe National
Cemetery.

The ceremony marks the end of an exhaustive pro­ject by the U.S. Bureau of
Recla­mation, which exhumed more than 60 sets of human remains in 2007
after wide­spread grave looting was discovered at the historical Fort
Craig cemetery in southern New Mexico. The three soldiers were among the
remains found.

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Pro patria,

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the
tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."

-- Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.