SERGEANT RECKLESS THE WAR HORSE HERO
Very special thanks to horse/animal and environment advocate, vegan, retired educator, mother and grandmother, Vivian Bell for reminding me about this wonderful story.
And thank you Vivian for taking the time to write and share the following. M xo
Vivian Bell writes:
The true story of Reckless, the Korean race horse the American Marine Corps used to carry cannon shells up mountainous territory during the Korean War, is crucially important in the debate today over horse slaughter.
Reckless is important because she brings into brilliant focus the truth about who horses really are, and the courageous devotion they are capable of giving to us, we who are so often unworthy of that devotion.
Once you understand the mind-boggling enormity of what she did, and then contrast that with the thought of her being slaughtered (she was not) when no longer “wanted” as so many horses are these days, then you understand with brand new clarity why horse slaughter is morally wrong.
During the Korean War, U.S. Marines were exhausting themselves trying to carry the huge shells for the new cannon they had nicknamed the “reckless” rifle up steep and rugged terrain.
They looked for some help, but all they could find was a scrawny, extremely undersized little racing mare, one that would most certainly be culled and slaughtered in today’s horse world.
They trained her to carry the shells and she became Private Reckless.
The marines shared their tents and food with her while she entertained them with her precocious personality.
In the fierce battle that turned the tide of the Korean War, the Battle of Outpost Vegas, soldiers remember seeing her straining and charging up the mountain, all by herself with no human to guide her, with her load of large cannon shells to rearm desperate units, her small body silhouetted in the night against the massive fireworks of relentlessly exploding shell fire.
The marines fighting there said that vision of her burned into their memories and gave them courage in a way they could not explain.
They took off their own flak jackets to try and shield her on her way back down the mountain.
She rescued pinned down marines, carried the dead and wounded back on her return trips and then was loaded up with shells to go right back up again, a total of 51 times in the Battle of Outpost Vegas which was one of the worst fire fights ever waged, but also many times in other battles.
Even being wounded herself did not stop her, when she was lathered in sweat and pummeled by the shockwaves of cannon fire, the marines kept her going by feeding her chocolate bars.
It is this image of the little mare struggling determinedly up steep terrain the soldiers remember so vividly, that a sculptor made into the life-sized statue and memorial to her that exists at Camp Pendleton in California, which is where she was well taken care of and retired to after earning two Purple Hearts and attaining the rank of Staff Sergeant in the US Marine Corps.
She is even given a place in the top one hundred heroes in American history.
Horse slaughter is a betrayal of the nobility, courage and bond that horses, donkeys, and all equines freely choose to forge with us.
We have built our civilizations on their patient backs, they have served us and still serve us in a dizzying variety of roles, including now serving as therapy horses for soldiers with PTSD, and they have fought by our sides in war.
As a species, they make a pact with us, they come in from the wild to us in the same way dogs have, they join our human herd and like Shakespeare’s “band of brothers” in war, they shed their blood together with us and die with us.
You don’t slaughter your band of brothers and sisters to put on a dinner plate.
If you can’t see that, horseman or not, then you have never really “seen” what a horse truly is.
All by herself, just like her trips up the mountain, Reckless can help you “see” with new eyes the spirit inside all horses, and the debt we owe all of them, if only you will let her.
Be sure to follow Vivian on Twitter.
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