The Argentine Army (Ejército Argentino, EA) is the land armed force branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic and the senior military service of the country. As of 2007, the army has 38,500 mlitary personnel. Under the Argentine Constitution, the President of Argentina is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, exercising his command authority through the Minister of Defense.
The Army's official foundation date is May 29, 1810 (celebrated in Argentina as the Army Day), four days after the Spanish colonial administration in Buenos Aires was overthrown. The new national army was formed out of several pre-existent colonial militia units and locally-manned regiments (most notoriously the Patricios Regiment, which to this date is still an active Army unit). These units had previously fought the British invasions of the Río de la Plata in 1806 and 1807.
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“I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this side of the country. His life is in some respects more adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and there is a greater interval of time at least between him and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines; there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and other improvements come steadily rushing after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)