Springfield, IL – The U.S. Army Civil Affairs Corps has a unique role within the modern military: These elite, highly trained soldiers are sent to combat zones after the primary fighting has ceased to help rebuild war-ravaged regions.

At the end of its fifth year of publication in 1912, the editors of The Messenger wrote in a front-page commentary: “There were then (in 1907) many who doubted that we should exist even a year, having no capital, not a cent to back us, and an unknown field wherein to work. The one year …