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# DLA celebrates Army’s 249th birthday

By Alexandria Brimage-GrayDLA Public Affairs

                FORT BELVOIR, Va.   –              
Employees of the Defense Logistics Agency and its tenant organizations gathered in the McNamara Headquarters Complex Auditorium to celebrate the Army’s 249th birthday with a cake-cutting ceremony June 12. 

The event began with the posting of the colors by the Military District of Washington’s U.S. Army Color Guard and playing of the national anthem by the U.S. Army Band brass quintet, followed by the invocation by Army Col. Thomas Brooks, DLA’s chaplain.

Attendees honored the 80th anniversary of D-Day during the celebration. D-Day commemorates the soldiers who fought and suffered when the U.S. Army landed units on the beaches of Normandy in western France.

Army Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly, DLA’s director, served as the event’s keynote speaker. He reminded employees that the Army’s birthday celebrates the lives of soldiers who made the America’s Army the greatest, most admired in the world.

“We commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion by honoring the heroes who fought and sacrificed in the battle that turned the tide of World War II in Europe,” he said. “By day’s end, about 4,900 allied troops had been killed, but our forces had succeeded in gaining a foothold on the French coast.”

Making the connection from D-Day to DLA, Simerly shared the courageous story of a D-Day soldier who later became DLA’s 21st director, Army Lt. Gen. Andrew McNamara.

“On D-Day, the four truck companies of McNamara’s 476th Quartermaster Group delivered supplies on Utah Beach under shellfire and strafing. They moved infantrymen forward and prisoners of war and American casualties back,” he said. “They carried mines and barbed wire to forward positions, and manned machine guns in the face of enemy resistance.”

Simerly described McNamara as one of the most decorated logisticians in U.S. history.

After World War II, McNamara became the quartermaster general of the Army and was selected to stand up the Defense Supply Agency and establish uniform logistics procedures for all the armed services.

“From those early days, DSA evolved into the Defense Logistics Agency, the nation’s combat logistics support agency – global, agile and innovative – focused on the warfighter always,” Simerly said.

He was joined on stage by Brooks, the oldest soldier in attendance, and the youngest soldier, Army Sgt. Capri Brown, for the cake cutting.

After the formal ceremony, employees and guests were invited to the cafeteria to enjoy punch and cake as they watched a performance by the U.S. Army Drill Team.

 

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