Remembering a Beloved Horse and Decorated Marine

From the New York Times:  Remembering a Beloved Horse and Decorated Marine

Ángel Franco/The New York Times
John Meyers, a retired Marine Corps sergeant, held a photo of Reckless, a horse that served with his Marine Corps regiment in the Korean War.

¶War is hell, but there is one aspect of the Korean War that John T. Meyers, a retired Marine Corps sergeant who lives in Upper Manhattan, remembers fondly every Veterans Day.

¶The memory is about one of his best war buddies – a popular sergeant who was decorated for battleground bravery. On Friday morning, Mr. Meyer, who lives in Inwood, pulled out a well-worn photograph he brought back from Korea of the sergeant grazing in a field.

¶“She was a heck of a work horse – she could carry 12 rounds of ammo,” he said. “She was a dependable, beautiful animal, and she was sociable.”

¶Mr. Meyers was speaking of Sgt. Reckless, a Mongolian mare who won two Purple Hearts and earned the rank of staff sergeant for carrying ammunition in battle. Mr. Meyers became close with the horse both on the battlefield, where he was a gunner, and in the mess tent, where he often worked as a cook with the Fifth Marine Regiment Anti-tank Company.

¶“I would feed her, so every time she’d see me, she’d trot over,” said Mr. Meyers, a retired shipping clerk. “I gave her an apple a day. She knew exactly where I slept and she’d come in the tent and lick my face to wake me up, so she could eat.”

¶Mr. Meyers recalled Sgt. Reckless carrying heavy rounds for the powerful anti-tank guns the unit used, known as recoilless rifles.

¶“That gun had a heck of a blast, but it wouldn’t bother Reckless,” he said. “Any animals in the area would take off, but that horse would stay calm.”

¶Veterans Day, which falls on Sunday, is always a special day for Mr. Meyers because it is the day after his birthday, which is Nov. 10th. On Saturday he will be 79, which is also the 237th anniversary of the corps itself. It also happens to be the 58th anniversary of the day that Reckless touched American soil after serving in Korea.

¶She became well known in the 1950s as America’s greatest equine war hero, the subject of an article in The Saturday Evening Post that was published while she was still in Korea. It helped ignite a public outcry to get the Marine Corps to bring her to the United States.

Camp Pendleton archives An undated photo of Reckless, a mare who received military commendations for her actions during the Korean War.

 

“In the 1950s, Reckless was as popular as Rin Tin Tin and Lassie,” said Robin Hutton, an author from Ventura, Calif. who is writing a book on Sgt. Reckless. In 1955 Sgt. Reckless appeared on the “Art Linkletter Show” and made many other public appearances after the war, Ms. Hutton said. Plans to bring her to New York City for an appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” were scuttled by a storm, and a planned film fell through, she said. Reckless soon drifted into obscurity.

Ms. Hutton helped gain support for the construction of a memorial to Sgt. Reckless that is scheduled to open in July at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Va. near the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va. It will include a statue in Semper Fidelis Memorial Park next to the museum and an exhibition of items, including one of Sgt. Reckless’s horseshoes and photographs.

Mr. Meyers said his unit fell in love with the horse, which they treated “like one of the fellows.”

“You had guys feeding her everything – beer, soda,” he said.

“The Marine Corps had this terrible chocolate pudding that was just horrible stuff,” Mr. Meyers recalled. “All the guys would just dump it in this big 55-gallon garbage can,” he said. “Well, who gets into the can but Reckless. She eats the pudding, and then she got the worst case of diarrhea you’ve ever seen.”

Mr. Meyers comes from a military family. His father, William, served in the Army in World War I and his leg was blown off in the Battle of the Marne. Mr. Meyers’ son, Larry,  served in the Marines in the 1980s and is now an equities trader who also lives in Inwood.

Sgt. Reckless’ biography is not entirely complete. The story goes that a Marine purchasing officer bought the horse from a Korean boy who needed money to buy his sister an artificial leg, according to a 1955 book, “Reckless: Pride of the Marines,” by Marine Lt. Col. Andrew Geer, a Marine commander who served with Sgt. Reckless and wrote articles about her for The Saturday Evening Post in the 1950s.

He described Sgt. Reckless braving flying bullets during one particularly fierce battle and continuing to carry ammunition and wounded soldiers even after being hit by shrapnel.

Reckless is the only animal to ever hold an official rank in any military service, Ms. Hutton said. Her two Purple Heart medals and a multitude of others were pinned to the scarlet and gold blanket she wore at appearances. She was retired on Nov. 10, 1960, with full military honors and lived at the stables at Camp Pendleton in California. She died in 1968 at age 20.

Mr. Meyers, who lives alone in a ground-floor apartment decorated with snapshots of his grandchildren and testaments to his service, stared at an old photograph of the horse that fought and drank alongside the leathernecks of his Marine Regiment.

That horse left a lasting impression on me,” Mr. Meyers said.