What is Champagne unit?

A champagne unit is a US military unit staffed by celebrities or people from wealthy or politically powerful families. Such units had often been part of the National Guard, and assigned to lower-risk duty inside the United States. The term is pejorative, with the connotation that such units were havens for those with connections who wished to avoid conscription into more dangerous duty while still gaining the prestige afforded in the United States to military service. Over a century earlier, such a unit was called a silk-stocking regiment after the New York's 7th Regiment, whose well-off members built their own armory, the Seventh Regiment Armory in the upper East side of Manhattan.