FORT BELVOIR, Va. – In the spring of 1775, the world order was in question. After decades of onerous taxation by the British, independent-minded American colonists sought to throw off the yoke of their cross-Atlantic governors and were prepared to do so at the point of the bayonet.
Such were the tinderbox conditions on the fateful morning of April 19, when colonists from across the state of Massachusetts assembled to confront the British in a series of engagements that Ralph Waldo Emerson would later immortalize in his Concord Hymn with “the shot heard round the world.”
As the sun rose that day, a young volunteer corporal in the Lexington militia, Moses Stone, collected his flintlock rifle, powder horn, shot, and ramrod and left his home to make a stand against the disciplined soldiery of the greatest military and colonial power on the planet. Thanks to a robust rebel spy and communications network, the British soldiers bound for nearby Concord on a mission to destroy colonial military supplies were caught unawares by Stone and his fellow “minutemen,” so called for the speed in which they would respond and assemble for combat.
With a surfeit of bravery and a dearth of numbers, six dozen colonists stalked out of a nearby tavern and assembled in two rows near the edge of the triangular field in Lexington’s town center, eye-to-eye with over 700 advancing redcoats and immortality.
After a tensely drawn standoff, the first shots of the American Revolution were fired, and as Thomas Jefferson would later observe, “the tree of liberty [was] refreshed…with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” The skirmish in Lexington Common briefly stymied the British advance, but the seasoned force moved inexorably toward its target destination in Concord.
In the first major engagement of the American Revolution, a force of hundreds of colonists confronted the British at Concord Bridge, halting their progress and ultimately prompting a full-scale retreat toward the protection of the Royal Navy’s blistering ship-mounted cannons and the additional garrison stationed at the British center of power in Boston. Within two days, over 15,000 armed colonists surrounded the city in siege.
Stone and other colonists, under the command of the newly appointed general George Washington, secretly placed artillery on the hills of Dorchester Heights surrounding Boston under the cover of night in early March. Their position compromised, the British hand was forced. They began a hasty evacuation of the key coastal metropolis, less than one month after the “shot heard round the world.”
The bellicose movements of the British military at Lexington and Concord prompted immediate action from the newly-minted colonial government. Assembled in Philadelphia, representatives from across the 13 colonies recognized the immediate need for unification.
On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress took a dramatic step toward national independence with the creation of the Continental Army. The nascent force was to be comprised of militia forces from across the Eastern Seaboard, now represented under one banner and thus becoming America’s first national institution, preceding the Declaration of Independence that would come just over a year later.
Stone’s service at Lexington was the beginning of a singular family tradition of service to the American military that would span the next two and a half centuries. Stone would continue his exemplary service to the revolution after his contributions at Lexington and Dorchester Heights, serving during the pivotal Ticonderoga campaign which featured the first American offensive actions of the war.
The nearby town of Stillwater, a crucial military position for the Ticonderoga conflict, saw a young New Hampshire private, Andrew Mace, begin his service for the Granite State and the fledgling United States. After the war, Mace’s son would marry Stone’s granddaughter and commence a sterling branch of military lineage that continues to this day.
The Mace family has service in almost every major American conflict from its foundation. Cornelius Stone Mace, a private in the Maine infantry during the Civil War, fought at Port Hudson, Winchester, Cedar Creek, and the pivotal siege of Petersburg that broke the back of the stalwart Army of Northern Virginia and led directly to general Robert E. Lee’s surrender at nearby Appomattox Courthouse. George Washington Light, another descendant, served as a corporal in the Connecticut infantry and artillery during the war, serving at the watershed battle of Fredericksburg.
During World War II, Eldon Mace, an officer in the Army Air Corps, flew for the 14th Air Force, an elite group of air-to-air combat specialists that sparred with the Japanese air forces over the Burmese jungles and in the remote mountain regions of southwest China. A crack pilot, he was credited with multiple kills for the Tigers before his P-51 Mustang was shot and heavily damaged over a river.
In the ensuing bailout, Eldon flew into the tail of the plane, shattering his ribcage and cracking his teeth, before parachuting into a nearby river. After his parachute dropped him into the water, he observed with horror that Imperial Japanese troops lined the riverbank and were firing at him. Suddenly, his terror ceded to disbelief as he saw tracer rounds whiz from within the dark jungle forests on the opposite bank towards the advancing Japanese soldiers.
His son Robert, the eldest surviving member of the Mace’s military clan, remembers his father relating the story well.
“He said he just figured, ‘if I’m looking at Japanese, and there’s somebody on the other side shooting at ’em, those are probably the good guys.’ So he swam that way.”
The decision was the right one, and he was whisked away by the mysterious riflemen through the secretive pathways maintained by the Chinese underground resistance, obscured from the predatory eyes of the patrolling Mitsubishi ‘Zeroes’ by impenetrable jungle canopies. Four and a half months later, he reached the safety of an American air base, where he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Robert continued the tradition of service, the first in his family to attend the prestigious United States Military Academy at West Point. Upon commissioning, he became an Airborne and Ranger qualified reconnaissance officer, serving in a light armored battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division. Despite his quickly mounting accolades as a Soldier, Robert still longed to follow in his father’s footsteps as a pilot. There was one problem: his eyesight.
“Army aviation required perfect eyesight, anyone in the cockpit of one of the choppers is a fully qualified pilot,” he explained. “I wore glasses, so I said, let’s think deep thoughts here. Navy’s got back seaters…let’s do this a different way.”
He transferred to the Navy to become a Naval Flight Officer, the so-called “back seaters” who are responsible for equipment management on the highly specialized planes. For decades, he flew in the P3 Orion, a surveillance and anti-submarine airplane that was a critical deterrent during the height of the Cold War.
Robert’s inspiration to serve came from an immersive exposure to military service in his youth.
“I grew up in the post-World War II era,” he said. “All the people we knew, parents, uncles…everyone was a veteran. That was the perspective we grew up with. It was an honorable thing to do, and everyone stepped up and did their duty.”
Through the course of his service, his family moved countless times, setting down temporary roots in locales from the exotic to the mundane. The adventurous life left an indelible mark on him, teaching him of the importance, the sacrifice, and the uniqueness of life in uniform. Most influential to him was the sense of camaraderie.
“It gives you something. I’ve got people around the world that if I need help emotionally, if I need help financially, they stand by you. If things go really bad, we’re in this together and we’ll stick around and save each other. One of these guys will throw me over his shoulder and they trust me to do the same thing for them. If we’re ever in the proverbial foxhole, we can handle this also. It’s very comforting.”
Robert’s career also left deep impressions on his two sons, Brandon and Matthew, who would both go on to follow, in their own distinct ways, in his footsteps as American Soldiers.
Matthew, the younger of the two brothers, took the more conventional approach. After graduating from the ROTC program, he began his Army career as a quartermaster officer and went on to connect with his family’s legacy of service. He served as a logistics officer in the 82nd Airborne Division, where is father had previously served as a tank platoon leader and intelligence officer.
Now serving in Army Futures Command and slated for battalion command, Matthew was recently pinned as a lieutenant colonel in a ceremony attended by the entire extended Mace family. He expects his service in uniform will not be the last of the line.
“My son Nick, who’s 11, said ‘it looks like this is the family business’ and I’d be proud to see him join,” he said. “It’s an incredible legacy of service – duty, honor, country – to pass down through generations.”
His elder brother Brandon took a far more avant-garde path into army greens, beginning his career as an actor, singer, and dancer in dinner theaters along the I-95 corridor through his mid-20s. As a married junior in college, he was contemplating his future options when the 9/11 attacks shocked the world and changed his perspective.
He researched into the Officer Candidate School and immediately set about applying. In short order, he was selected to compete in a selective military board against current Soldiers to earn his slot. While the sharply dressed Soldiers streamed in and militaristically marched into the room, Brandon realized he may have been out of his depth. His attire did not help.
“I didn’t have a single suit to my name, but I happened to be in a play at the time that had an olive suit as part of my costume, so I just used that,” he laughingly recalled. “I didn’t know whether I was supposed to shake their hands or salute them.”
His theater training kicked in, and he observed the Soldiers before him knocking at precise intervals and marching toward the center of the room to mechanically click their heels and report for further examination. With his cues now understood, Brandon played the part…and got the role.
After a successful career in the Army’s public affairs community, Brandon, currently a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, has performed in a series of impactful positions in the Army’s marketing division. In his current role as the chief marketing officer for the Office of the Chief of Army Reserve, he balances his time between high-profile briefings to senior officers and coaching young Soldiers through film spots across the United States.
“I still get to do what I love, every day,” he said. “I get to run the gamut of every phase of the production cycle, on camera, behind it, getting our brand recognized and getting the Army Reserve out there.”
Brandon’s passion for his role is palpable, a clear byproduct of the fortuitous blending of his family’s military history and his theatrical background.
“I really, really love the Army,” he continued. “I get to go out and tell stories of young folks, I’m not caught in an office. I’m seeing young people thinking they can’t do something and learning they can. It’s a good organization…and it’s my personal mission to give young people the opportunity to make the right choice and see if it’s for them.”
His marketing expertise landed one critical recruit, the youngest member of the 250-year-old Mace military clan. Pvt. 1st Class Thorton “Thor” Mace, Brandon’s son, currently serves at the U.S. Army Airborne School at Fort Benning, Ga. as an airborne qualified parachute rigger.
The family ties came full circle during Thor’s completion of airborne training, when the patriarch of the family, Robert, flew in with the rest of the family to pin his wings on his chest. Thor understood well the implications of his grandfather’s act.
“That was a really emotional moment for me,” he said. “My grandpa pulled out his first set of wings to pin me. It was so special because it was someone who went through the training on the same soil, on the same ground, jumping in ’chutes just like I did. It was a proud moment, for me and my grandfather.”
As the U.S. Army approaches the sesquicentennial anniversary of its founding in the stifling heat of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in 1775, the family has had a great deal of reflection on its role in the process. With service members in every branch of the military back to the fateful first shots at Lexington Common, Brandon considered his service not as part of a continuum, but as a series of independent decisions to the same end.
“My grandfather didn’t say you have to do this, this wasn’t planned,” Brandon explained. “We all joined for our own reasons, because it meant something to us. I love this country, and I want to be a part of seeing it succeed.”
As he continued, the parallels of selfless service through the centuries became clear.
“There was always a willingness to serve. Stone was in the militia, he responded, he opted to grab his weapon and respond to the Lexington Alarm. My grandfather, father, son…we all made the choice, we all volunteered, we all wanted to be here.”
While considering his lineage with characteristic humility, Robert brought attention to the balance between the citizen and the Soldier that has been the hallmark of the American army since its foundation.
“We were farmers, entrepreneurs, wheelers and dealers, cowboys, bankers, engineers, oilmen,” he said of his family. “We weren’t hoping for a war to come along. When our time came to serve, we did it. There was nothing extraordinary about it. If the nation needed help, we stood up and did it, isn’t that what my neighbor is supposed to do?”
Young Thor paused for a moment as he considered his family lineage.
“The word Soldier itself is such a strong word,” Thor said as he pondered the one descriptor that ceaselessly binds the Mace line back to America’s founding. “It sounds tough. I’m a Soldier. My dad’s a Soldier. My family were Soldiers.”
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