Hoofed warriors
USAToday reports that at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center near Bridgeport, California, Marines are bringing back horsemanship skills and teaching Army Special Forces to ride, care for and select horses;
At this remote training area high in the Sierra, the U.S. Marine Corps is reviving the horsemanship skills that were once a key part of the nation’s armed forces but were cast aside when tanks and armored vehicles replaced them. The need to bring these skills back was driven home in Afghanistan in 2001, when the first Special Forces soldiers to arrive found themselves fighting on horseback alongside tribesmen in rugged terrain without roads. Many had never ridden a horse before.
“We don’t want to reinvent anything,” said Marine Capt. Seth Miller, the officer in charge of formal schools at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center. “These are skills that were lost.”
Marine instructors are teaching the students, most of them Army Special Forces soldiers, how to control horses, care for them and load packs. The students are taught how to calculate routes and distances for rides and what to look for when purchasing horses from locals.
Category: Military issues
They used to train Marines to use mules to carry our gear (heavy weapons, water, etc.) too. I remember in 1988, during a summer training package, doing a battalion night movement through the mountains and we had to stop to rest the mules. Sergeant Bullard was grateful, cause he needed a little rest too!!
We never stopped teaching Master Guns, mule packing is still part of Summer Mountain Leaders Course.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
AW1 Tim…My thoughts exactly. Thank you.
Mules and horses have long been in the vernacular of the troops.
Vinegar Joe Stillwell used them as they trekked through and fought against the Japanese in Burma.
The men loved them so much they would shoulder the equipment to lighten the load on them and would give them food meant for them because of the love they had for the mules.
It’s quite the history and always a pleasure to read about.
I’m glad that they have seen how the horses and mules can help us.
Cool, does this mean that they can now wear the Cavalry Stetsons? 🙂
Show me an SF guy that wants to wear a cavalry stetson and I’ll show you the Hulk leading a group anger management therapy session
There was already a TC on this but I’m sure tickled that they’re starting to take it seriously. Robots are a great idea but they don’t exactly work or allow blending in. Donkeys/horses are a pain but damn are they useful!
I agree, but seeing that headless DARPA monstrosity walking through town would send the Tallywackers fleeing in the other direction, especially with a little added special effects (think horror movie).
DARPA LS3 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hNUeSUXOc-w
God knows it makes me flinch… Now, make it twice as large so it can carry a soldier, make it look like a Grizzly and mount a Ma Duce and we’d be getting somewhere…
LS3 creeps me out.
When does Skynet become self-aware?
Originally, Skynet became self-aware at 02:14 AM Eastern Time on August 4, 1997. However, due to the effects of time travel on the past, that date has changed multiple times. All, however, are in the past with respect to today.
Allegedly. (smile)
Yes, LS3 does creep me out. It only needs to whinny and paw the ground. But it gave me an idea.
You guys all remember the Trojan horse, right?
And the dog that barked in the night?
Well, make LS3 look like one of those poor ol’ donkeys that run loose everywhere. Load it up with whatever fireworks suit your fancy. Put it on remote transmit drive (RTD) and send it into town. When someone wonders what the hell that thing is — BOOM!!
It needs work on the hoof size, but it can trot nicely and cover ground quickly, and it won’t stop for lunch along the way.
That, and the self-driven vehicles under testing now, the Evil Trucks — I’m tellin’ you, that’s the wave of the future… until the Sandworms finally come erupting out of the desert of Arrakis — oh, wait, that was another story.
I’m creeped out and impressed by LS3. I don’t know whether to kick itg or give it an apple. It’s just downright creepy in the way it moves – a natural movment reminiscent of the Toasters at their worse, but no clanking noises.
Does that mean the Sixes and Sharons are on the drawing board? If so, sign me up as a product tester! Just don’t tell my wife!
The US Army doesn’t teach horsemanship at FT. Hood these days?
I wondered too, the home of the Cavalry doesn’t teach horsemanship?
I didn’t realize we’d ever stopped this program. They were still teaching it in 94 when I went through and one of my Sergaents, a Montana cowboy and grad of the class went to teach there.
Sergeants
FWIW: mules were also used extensively within the US 5th Army in Italy during World War II. Truscott was instrumental in making that happen; it was outside the Army’s doctrine at the time, but Truscott championed the idea and made it happen.
This isn’t new. Here is an article from 2002 about it
http://savannahnow.com/stories/092202/LOCOpsAnimals.shtml
Whenever I see an article on the subject of using horses in the military today, I think of the America’s Response Monument (“De Oppresso Liber). If only there were miniature versions available…
Go Cav, in whatever form, whatever branch of service.
It reminds me of the Presidential debate when Obama made his horses and bayonets comment. I thought doesn’t he realize that it was Soldiers on horseback that toppled the Taliban and that we now have more bayonets than we did in 1917.
When I left the Army in 1985, the Company Schedules still called vehicle maintenance,
“Motor Stables,” Is that still the case?
Still the case in the Corps at least.
We did in the AZNG until 2007 at least. I don’t know about now.
I don’t think we’ll ever see a vehicle or robot that can reliably go all the places a horse or mule can reach, at the same or better speed, with any kind of load. Combine that with the fact that mount and pack animals can forage their own graze in most environments, vs supplying fuel and/or batteries to your vehicle or robot. Certainly surpassed in many areas, but the horse will always have a place.
Plus, horses and mules are intelligent domestic animals with a natural affinity for humans similar (not identical) to that found in dogs. If properly trained, they can be loaded and turned loose to find their own way. Case in point: SGT Reckless, a pack mare used by the Marines at Chosin.
I was taught as a child that a good dog or a good horse will save your life. They are the only animals that will do that (okay, them and that one cat on TV that attacked the pit bull). Cats sure as hell won’t (except that one cat).
Great post except one part. Cats don’t act the same way as dogs and horses, but they can and do save lives. There have been multiple cases of cats alerting their owners to house fires, and cats also are known to alert diabetics to changes in their blood sugar when it reaches dangerous levels, either high or low. But other than that…great post!
Fair point, I suppose, but it fails to address the crucial point that I really, really, REALLY hate cats.
You mean to say that you get weirded out when they sit and stare at you with glowing, demonic eyes…or you wake up with them on your chest and nose-to-nose with you…or they slink around like living shadows and glide between your ankles just as you’re about to go down the cellar stairs…or they love you so much that they leave a dead mouse in your bed…
Gee OW, I don’t know… 🙂
Basically, I just find cats irritating. Few of them are friendly, they like to claw the hell out of everything–including me, they’re generally irritating, their primary function is pest control and most of them suck at it, they tend to be assholes, and I was once cockblocked by a cat.
In my entire life there has been only one cat that I didn’t want to throw in front of a passing lawnmower. He was cool, but not enough to redeem his species.
Cats suck.
For your amusement:
http://www.reconnections.net/difference_cats_dogs.htm
Oh, now, TOW, cats probably think you suck, too.
They’re more like men than women: some are needy, some leave hair everywhere they go, and they always, always want your side of the bed. And they snore, leave hair, whiskers and nail sheaths all over, and never EVER pick up after themselves.
“Cats suck.”
Bill Hicks and I agree with you.
Looks like he’s riding a high-backed slick-fork Wade saddle.
Yee-hawwwww
Neat.
I want to learn how to ride a horse some day.
Horsemanship should be a mandatory Man Skill, like shooting or barbecuing.
In my youth, there was an old man that lived across the street from my Grandparents. He owned a Kirby Vaccuum Dealership, always drove a Cadillac, and often gave us some of his season tickets to NFL games. He told me that he had been in the Army in the Horse Cavalry at Ft. Bliss. I will never forget him.
USAToday video: “Special Forces Horsemanship Training.”
http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/nation/2014/06/22/11067369/
Don’t the Marines do some mounted back country patrols in Hawaii? I seem to remember reading about it awhile back.