About 17 Citizen-Soldiers of Atlanta's 3rd Squadron, 108th Cavalry, began the estimated 101-mile march at the Guard's armory in Toccoa during the early morning hours of Nov. 4.
The team estimates traveling 33 miles per day, arriving two days later at Atlanta's Oglethorpe University. On the morning of Nov. 7, the Guardsmen will travel an additional six miles along Peachtree Street and join in the Atlanta Veteran's Day Parade scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 7.
Each man is carrying 35-pound backpacks and M4 carbine "training rifles," and will pass on their way out of Toccoa the Col. Robert F. Sink Memorial Trail up Currahee Mountain, named for 506th regimental commander, and the memorial marking the original location of Camp Toccoa –now an industrial park- where the 506th and Easy Company of 'Band of Brothers’ fame came into being.
3rd Squadron, 108th Cavalry-formerly Company H, 121st Infantry re-enacted the march in 2008, and previous re-enactments were conducted in 2002 and 2005. World events and deployments prohibited the Georgia Guardsmen from re-enacting the march between 2003-2007.
In December 1942, shortly after having completing its basic training at Camp Toccoa, the 506th was about to move to Fort Benning in Columbus to begin its parachute training.
Sink, who'd read a Reader's Digest story about a Japanese Army unit that had broken the world record for marching (about 100 miles in only a few days). Believing his men, including those of Easy Company, could do better, Sink ordered 2nd Battalion and its commander Maj. Robert L. Strayer 118 miles south to Atlanta. When the battalion reached Atlanta's Five Points area, it was greeted by crowds of cheering civilians and news media who'd lined the streets in anticipation of the unit's arrival.
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