The next best thing if you can't join the ANG/USAFR?

[Disregard]

Philadelphia Is Looking for a Few Good Gentlemen

Deployments Thin Ranks of Unit That Has Lured Blue Bloods Since 1774

By Michael M. Phillips

Updated Oct. 15, 2014 6:31 p.m. ET

PHILADELPHIA— Gregg Connell ’s enlistment into his National Guard cavalry unit went like this:

Already well-lubricated at the armory bar, members of the troop passed around a wooden box. Those who wanted to accept Spc. Connell dropped in white marbles. Those opposed, black marbles.

White marbles outnumbering black, Spc. Connell was summoned into the armory’s mess hall, where, beneath oil paintings of bewhiskered men in silver-buttoned tunics and helmets topped with bearskin crests, the captain pinned a fabric rosette to his blue blazer. Spc. Connell saluted and signed a muster roll with names dating back to 1774.

Then he stood on a chair and sang a selection from the troop’s big book of bawdy songs: “Take It Out at the Ballgame.”

So it was that the 24-year-old aspiring architect joined what is probably the most idiosyncratic unit in the U.S. military: First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry.

Part blue-blooded fraternity, part olive-drab fighting force, First Troop is a throwback to a time when militias were democratic entities raised by local luminaries, and it still operates under rules that would make most Army commanders splutter with disapproval.

...

By law, First Troop retains certain rights and distinctions because its existence predates the Militia Act of 1792, including its democratic approach to rank.

[MHS]

"Spc. Connell heard about the troop from a family friend, and was sold at his maiden recruiting event, a black-tie casino night at the armory with roulette, blackjack and strippers."

Awesome!

Edited October 18, 2014 by MHS