 There's a story we've endured since the Napoleonic Wars about an English cavalry officer who, according to the tale, said that the purpose of cavalry in warfare was to give tone to what would otherwise be simply a vulgar brawl. The cavalry trooper in the United States Army was always from the beginning a magnificent fighter and the cavalry itself a magnificent service. Surrounding the very word cavalry there's a warm glow of nostalgia, romance, and valor, a sense of proud men fighting in a proud cause with both dash and distinction. It's now many years since the horse cavalry was abolished in our army. Three wars have been fought without it. But the cavalry itself, its concept and its mission, are still a vital part of today's army. Today the big picture camera sweeps back through history to bring you the story of the cavalry in its long ride to glory. The story of the U.S. cavalry threads through our nation's history from its opening pages. This is a salute to those valiant mounted warriors. From the beginning the cavalry was part of the ragged and untried continental army which secured the dream of independence for the young nation. It was a small force, however, and it did not really come into its own until the southern campaigns toward the end of the war. Then at King's Mountain and Carpens and in a series of other mounted battles small bodies of regular cavalry routed the British and helped turn the tide of the war. From the revolution emerged one of the first of a long line of distinguished cavalrymen, light horse Harry Lee of Virginia, whose son Robert E. Lee would later make his own mark in another chapter of American history. During the war of 1812 American mounted troops twice scored important victories against the British once in the battle of the Thames in western Ontario and against their Indian allies on the Tala Pusa River in Alabama. The war with Mexico which followed the admission of Texas into the union was a cavalry war particularly with the invasion of the Mexican territories of New Mexico and California which extended the nation's boundaries to the coastline of the Pacific. The mounted warriors in this conflict fought with the magnificence which prompted their commander to tell them you have been baptized in fire and blood and have come out steel. The growing nation now stretched across the western prairies. Settlement of the land was violently resisted by the hostile Indians who made war on the pioneers carrying civilization to the Buffalo lands. It now became the task of the hard riding and hard fighting cavalry to make the westward creeping frontiers secure. Then 12,000 miles of territory had to be protected against tribes prepared to fight to the death the migration of white men into their world. The firing of Fort Sumter heralding the civil war which presented the nation with its greatest test interrupted the cavalry's mission in the west. Confederate leaders like Jeb Stuart who twice led his cavalry of the army of northern Virginia completely around the opposing union armies used mounted troops wisely and colorably and with spectacular success from the beginning. As a result the Confederacy had a mounted superiority over the north in the early part of the war. The union however had cavalry giants of its own. Bill Sheridan and James H. Wilson and under them the union cavalry became one of the greatest forces in the history of warfare and broke into action after almost two years on the defensive it literally tore the heart out of the southern forces. The cavalry of both armies union and Confederacy fought with daring and distinction and with imagination. Together they developed a new concept of cavalry warfare which took fullest advantage of the cavalry's potential for speed and mobility completely revolutionizing strategy and tactics which had always before characterized mounted action. With the end of the civil war the cavalry trooper turned his attentions once more to the enemy in the west. While the divided nation had been struggling for survival for four years the Indian tribes taking advantage of the conflict had loosed a fury of attacks against the settlements in the west. They followed almost three decades of terror and bloodshed on the plains. Many heroic names from cavalry lore emerged from this period but none more enduring than that of Major General George Armstrong Custer. His defeat at the hands of a horde of screaming Sioux and Cheyenne Braves near the Little Bighorn River has symbolized the generations of Americans the cruel character of the Indian wars in the west. On this sunbaked bridge in southern Montana on a scorching June afternoon in 1876 where every member of Custer's proud and spirited seventh cavalry regiment faced and met violent death the Indian achieved his most memorable victory over the white man. Skirmish followed skirmish in those lusty and troubled years. The whole savage west was aflame. Peace came hard and slowly and only with the constant pressure of force applied by the mounted guardians of the nation's territories. By the turn of the century the bloody work of the trooper and his steed was over in the west. America's frontiers were secure at last. For the first time in half a century peace pervaded the plains and the mountains and life for the tough cavalrymen became almost routine after the capitulation of the long-warring red men. Chief Joseph the indomitable chief of the Napercay who had fought the army bitterly spelled out the tragic destiny of all the Indian nations with his words of surrender to the cavalry in northern Montana. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people have run away to the hills. Hear me my chiefs. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever. The next great chapter in cavalry lore bears the indelible imprint of one man Theodore Roosevelt whose first united states volunteer cavalry or rough riders as they were called captured the public's imagination and romantic attention with their courageous charge of San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American war. What was to be the last campaign of the old cavalry came in 1916 with the punitive expedition across the border into Mexico to pursue the bandit Pancho Villa who had wreaked destruction on American lives and property near the border. No one could know for history does not reveal itself as it is happening that the proud formations which gathered here for the long daring ride into the teeth of the danger that lay waiting would be making the United States Cavalry's last great mounted ride in combat. But here on this desert stage the mounted traditions which stretched back to the winning of the republic would be played out in a final patch. But although none could know it least of all the troopers themselves they rode and they fought as if they realized they were waging this last historic battle for history's records. With the beginning of World War I the history of the cavalry changed forever. A regiment of cavalry troopers and horses landed in France with the American expeditionary force. But the western front was stabilized into a trench warfare of mass fire and little change of position and there was no use for the mobility of cavalry. At training camps back in the states there was still no reason to believe that the end of the cavalry was in sight however. Even though the greatest war in human history had left it behind this was because of factors beyond the controlled strategists. The cavalry was still very much an active force and mounted troops trained constantly to keep in readiness for the day when the combat situation might change. So the training went on unceasingly. Training in all the qualities which have made cavalry indispensable. Maneuverability, movement, horsemanship. Only once in Europe during World War I however was American cavalry employed tactically. For the most part instead of fighting with the esprit and dash which had distinguished it in so many other wars the cavalry in Europe was left with the unfamiliar task of running various remount stations. Mules and horses used for transport were cared for at these depots. The horse himself proud steed bred to the thrill of excitement became for a while a messenger a carrier of supplies for whom the bugle called a battle no longer sounded. He was treated well and with consideration however as befits an honored warrior who had been withdrawn for a while from the battle. Still there was no valid reason to believe the story of the cavalry was ending. Despite the small part it had played all the great generals of the war paid tribute to its continuing function. General John Pershing declared there is not in the world today an officer of distinction who does not believe with emphasis that cavalry is as important today as it ever has been. So with the end of World War I the pride and the polish of the cavalry remained undiminished. Colorful and aggressive it continued to train devotedly in its traditional role of the army's mobile arm the antennae of a striking force. It was well prepared to carry out its mission of reconnaissance and counter reconnaissance screening and planking in every kind of terrain and situation. The cavalry kept alive the disciplines and the skills and the aileron which were the soul of the mounted tradition. Yes the cavalry trained hard during the 20s and 30s while war clouds were forming over Europe and the Orient. But it was training for a war it would never fight. These were the twilight years for the cavalry. But by the time World War II broke out the age of mechanization had overtaken the horse. German Panzer divisions overran northern Europe crushing all resistance under a rolling mass of steel and fire. The devastating successes of the Blitz Kriegs which these armored divisions spearheaded pointed up clearly the kind of mobile force that each side would employ on the battlefields of World War II. The United States Army adopted the armored force as its new mobile arm. Under the direction of such old-time cavalrymen as General George S. Patton in Europe it launched its spectacular drives into the heart of the enemy's country. On the other side of the world cavalry troopers received their baptism in a new kind of warfare. The men of the first cavalry division traveled not by horse but by new amphibious steeds to the islands of the Pacific. The division whose history reaches back to the winning of the planes was the only cavalry division to remain intact during the war. But if fort dismounted as infantry the troopers handled their new role well. They fought with a courage that did justice to the reputation established by their mounted comrades of an earlier age. They battled the Japanese in the succession of vital and bitterly They fought and they won and with peace they moved on into the capital of the enemy's homeland. After traveling the long route through the beaches of Laity and the jungles of Luzon the division was the first to enter Tokyo. It was a proud climax to a valorous performance as tough as any in cavalry history. The fighting spirit of the cavalrymen had endured and emerged once more victorious. The division brought credit to itself in its occupation of Japan but its fighting days were not yet over. Less than five years after its triumphal entry into Tokyo the first cavalry division was on the move again to defend the invaded land of South Korea. Less than a month after the North Korean communists began their aggressive war in June of 1950 the division landed at Pohang-dong on the east coast of Korea. Its mission was to push inland and help stop the enemy from reaching the port city of Busan. Dismounted once more they fought with the same distinction they had shown in World War II. Their mission was successful. The defense perimeter around Busan held and while the world watched and hoped the beleaguered nation of South Korea continued to live. In September of 1950 the division broke out of the perimeter along with the rest of the UN forces. And now it had a new mission to drive north more than 100 miles through enemy territory to link up with the seventh division which had landed on the west coast. It fulfilled this mission in little more than 20 hours in a drive called the most rapid advance ever made in the history of modern arms. The inheritors of the legend of the little big horn pushed north across the 38th parallel and the cavalrymen who had in World War II achieved the distinction of being first into two enemy capitals Manila and Tokyo now set themselves to the task of adding another first to their record. Pyongyang the capital city of the North Korean aggressor. They succeeded. This victory too was theirs. And with the collapse of the North Korean enemy symbolized by this capture of his strongly held capital the hope for peace grew bright again. But it was a false hope. An entirely new war came with the entry of the Chinese communists into the conflict. Korea added many names to the division's roster of memorable battles. Its last big action was a series of sustained assaults on famed old Baldi and the vital hills around which in enemy hands threatened the United Nations supply line. Old Baldi was taken. The last campaign ended in victory. A victory bought like all the others with bravery and devotion. When the fighting was over for the weary men of the division they returned to Japan. The last in a long and gallant line of cavalrymen who had fought their nation's wars with distinction. The inheritors of a tradition which reached back to the earliest pages of the American past. The cavalrymen. But through two wars cavalrymen had fought dismounted and now the word cavalry existed only as a name and a noble memory. Or so it seemed. So it would seem indeed. No more can be heard again the creak of saddle harness in battle. The horse has retired forever from the field of combat. The few horses that remain in the army are stationed at the old cavalry post of Fort Meier, Virginia. The old ones bask in the sun after years of service. Younger horses are still drafted for service. Not the exciting service that their forebears knew, but duty of signal honor nonetheless. They belong along with the men who ride them and care for them to the honor guard unit of the Third Infantry Regiment. Bears is the job of transporting America's heroic military dead to their final resting place. They are proud symbols of an army that has gone. The army has built on a mobile capability whose dimensions have increased a hundred fold over the capabilities of yesterday's army. This new mobility, a product of the age of mechanization, is constantly being improved by the forward rush of technology's advance. Combat forces can travel with greater speed over greater distances, with greater protection than even the strategists of a generation ago might have believed possible. Developments in fire power and communication have matched the advances in this ability to maneuver. The result is an army equipped and prepared to fight any kind of combat under any kind of conditions, on any kind of terrain or locale. An army no longer imprisoned by factors of environment or distance. There is no place in such an army for the old horse cavalry. But wherever men fight with courage and dash, there will be a place for the spirit of the charge. For honorable traditions do not die easily, nor do historic missions which have proved themselves indispensable in warfare. The horse is gone. A commission of the cavalry remains, carried out now on other steams. Techniques change, but traditions endure. And the traditions of the men who won the west, who died with custard, who rode with steward and with chariot, who found glory at the charge and wrote history with their spirit, are too deeply embedded in the fiber of America ever to be lost or forgotten. Traditions endure. The hoof beats of the cavalry thunder still in the memory of living men, and they echo and will echo forever in the mind of the nation. From the horse to the air, a long ride in a colorful one. The cavalry's long ride through the nation's history and that of the army which secured it and guards its peace and its power today.