MACON, Ga., - The Army returned to Fort “Benjamin” Hawkins today as 25 recruits and five recruiters from the Georgia Army Guard Recruit Sustainment Program’s (RSP) Detachment 2 helped clear away brush, plant trees and dig a drainage ditch at the 1.4-acre site that is considered this city’s birthplace.
This project and the cleanup efforts by a second RSP detachment along a stretch of highway near Winder, is part of the first ever “Guard the Environment” program.
Launched in all 54 states and territories this month by the Army Guard Recruiting Division at the National Guard Bureau, it is a way for the Guard to give back to the communities where they are home stationed.
While the program does focus on RSP involvement, any Guard unit can participate.
“As Citizen-Soldiers, as members of our nation’s military, we are responsible for the places in which we live and work,” said Master Sgt. Jovell Vappie, the Macon detachment’s senior enlisted leader. “We already reinforce in our Soldiers, especially these young recruits, the importance of recycling, picking up trash and better use of energy resources, but through this event –and many more like it– we, and they, are showing Georgia and the nation that the Guard leads the way in environmental stewardship.”
Choosing Fort Hawkins for this first event serves that purpose, Vappie said, and it provides her charges with an understanding of the importance of preserving history.
Then President Thomas Jefferson and Indian agent Col. Benjamin Hawkins as an Army post and Indian factory for trading and meeting with Native Americans established the fort in 1806. It overlooked the ancient Indian Mounds of the “Old Fields” held sacred by the Muskogee Creek Nation, the Ocmulgee River, the Lower Creek Pathway.
The road built for the fort became the federal road connecting Washington to Mobile and New Orleans, and the future site of the city of Macon founded across the river seventeen years later. Fort Hawkins also played a strategic role as the “Pentagon of the South” during the War of 1812, and the Creek and Seminole Indian wars of the mid-1800s.
“Having these young men and women here to help us continue the preservation of this archaeological national treasure is a great honor,” said Marty Willett, who chairs the Fort Hawkins Commission.
“It’s also our pleasure to help them as they challenge city residents to do their part in making Macon an environmental showcase for the rest of the state,” said Ward 1 city councilman Rick Hutto.
Spc. Marc Williams, who planted on of the two trees, said being involved in Guard the Environment, and helping the commission preserve the site is something he deems important.
“It gives me a sense of pride not only in myself –as a citizen and as a Soldier,” said Williams, a trumpet player who is about to join the Guard’s 116th Army Band. “Thereby, it also gives me great satisfaction to know the Georgia National Guard doesn’t just ‘talk the talk’ when it comes to the environment, but that it practices what it preaches.”