History of the A Battery Association:
It is and has been difficult to pin down exactly when the original A Battery Association was founded. We do have proof that unit personnel have been gathering each year for a dinner and award presentations for as far back as 1892. Documentation prior to this, however, is a bit scarce. We assume that the then current battery leaders organized this annual event from the very first year (1866), but we currently have no proof. A newspaper article appeared in The Oregon Sunday Journal on January 23rd of 1916 citing that the "Veterans of Battery A" had officially formed two years previous. Their initial duties were to seek out and record the whereabouts of all former members of the battery. In addition, starting with this year's 50th celebration, they were asked to plan, organize, and host the annual dinners. The article went on to list the elected officers of this new veterans organization and further hinted that the battery's military leaders were happy with this new arrangement as it allowed them to spend more time to prepare the battery for war. So if you crunch the numbers and accept the newspaper article as truth, then it is easy to conclude that the A Battery Association was first officially organized in 1914 under the generic name of "Veterans of Battery A". Confirming information has not yet been found.
More early history to come....
The modern A Battery Association can be traced back to the days immediately after Word War II when the returning veterans of Battery A were released from active duty and returned to their homes. Annual formal events were recorded in local newspapers and official military publications. Interest soon waned, however, and the dinners became less and less publicized.
In the early years of the annual dinners it was commonplace to see the Governor of Oregon, the Mayor of Portland, the Adjutant General of the Oregon National Guard, and other local military and civilian dignitaries on the guest list. The drastic troop reductions after World War II and changing civilian attitudes of everything military thru the Korean and Vietnam wars proved to be the beginning of the end for higher military and civilian involvement in subsequent celebrations. Today the event is rarely mentioned in any civilian or military publication, and higher-level guests are few. Change is needed.
In the mid-1980s the A Battery Association had some new life put into it when CPT Michael Fitz took over as the Secretary/Treasurer. From this point on we have a much better grasp of what actually happened as Mike Fitz is still the Secretary/Treasurer to this day. Now if he can only find the old boxes he put his notes in!
So here we are in October of 2008. History is about to be made again as the Executive Board of the A Battery Association has commissioned an old soldier to put what they know about their former battery into a website for all the world to see. So now it's time to separate the facts from the stories; time to find the truth in all those bar-room tales; time to write history like it happened instead of how we wanted it to happen. No small task!