BC3D-Day has arrived. After months of preparation, consultation and strategizing with potential allies, Butler County Community College has established its much-anticipated beachhead in downtown Butler.

Let the academic invasion commence.

The college has rented office space on the second floor of the Alliance for Nonprofit Resources, 127 S. Main St., for what has been described as a living and learning center.

BC3 officials have not yet disclosed specific plans. But in April, President Nick Neupauer and the board of trustees agreed to establish a living and learning center downtown to house classrooms and 10 to 15 student apartments in time for the fall 2019-20 semester.

The ANR upper floor “will be a nice initial presence in downtown Butler,” Neupauer said this week, adding, “We met with several organizations. We were looking for the perfect fit.”

The location will make an ideal command post for the war ahead. ANR is a division of the Center for Community Resources, an organization dedicated to managing and funding nonprofits of all kinds while mating money and other resources with charitable causes.

CCR’s role and function are important details. BC3 officials have said previously the school does not have on hand the money it will take to sustain a downtown presence. It’s a little like Gen. Robert E. Lee invading Gettysburg intending to feed his Confederate troops on the wealth and generosity of Pennsylvania’s farms, factories and people.

If the allusions to battle seem overly dramatic, they should not. At some rudimentary level, it helps galvanizes our resolve when we perceive an enemy at war against us.

This enemy takes casualties as well as prisoners, wreaks destruction and causes suffering upon countless individuals and their families.

The enemy goes by many names. Lack is one name. Poverty and ignorance are others. Two allies march at its flanks — a ruthless mercenary named hopelessness, and an even more sinister mercenary called despair.

Hopelessness and despair should be on notice: the cavalry has arrived to take back the town.

In war there is always an objective. In this case there are two. First, to establish and defend a downtown headquarters of higher learning and vocational training; and second, to push poverty/lack/ignorance completely out of the city and along with it, the twin mercenaries of hopelessness and despair.

The battle won’t be won overnight, and it won’t be won without support and supply lines. The community must take an active role in the development of BC3 if it is to grow and prosper as part of a growing, prosperous downtown.

But first things first.

“Keep a clear eye,” advised Gen. John Buford, the Union cavalry commander, in the opening moments of the Battle of Gettysburg as his units prepared to face an overwhelming force of Confederate infantry.

That’s sound advice for everyone involved with BC3’s downtown venture, and for the rest of us who have been called stand in auxiliary support of it.