 Thank you very much. Well, this is indeed a good war story. It involves a bunch of marines, all members of the 75-millimeter recoilless rifle platoon, fifth regimen in Korea at the time of the Korean War. And as you already know, the only thing was one of them had four legs, and they called her reckless. She was acquired, the main reason she was acquired was to haul the heavy ammunition to the recoilless rifle sites. And the recoilless, the 75-millimeter recoilless rifles in the jargon of the day were known as the reckless rifles, and they were fired by the reckless rifle boys. So to call her reckless was a pretty easy stretch. What she was asked to do and what in time she did so brilliantly had everything to do with how the war changed. And the Korean War changed dramatically, about a third of the way through. It changed where it was fought, how it was fought, the confirmation, the layout of the troops, everything changed. And I think to understand how that paved the way for reckless, it, if you will indulge me a little bit of time for the history of the war, the early part, the lead up to it, and so forth. But first, I have to issue a disclaimer. Reckless was a pony. Horse people here, she was 11 hands, one inch, and that is small. She was a little Jeju pony, J-E-J-U. It's the indigenous breed of Korea. It was a named breed from at least the end of the 1200s. A mainstay of Korea for many hundreds of years. A hand of 11 hands, a hand is four inches. And in the old days, they literally went up the side of a horse like this. So 11 times four is 44 plus 1, 45 inches to the withers. And that's the inside elbow where the neck and the back meet, okay? I'm five foot three. So I put the top of her back about here. So I could just, you know, I could have leaned over the top of her. Very, very small. The reason I tell you this is that you will, you'll remember that she's a pony, and I might say pony occasionally, but mostly she was called a horse. In fact, I talked to more than 60 of the guys that knew her in Korea and thereafter. I never once heard anyone use the term pony. She was their war horse. She was their horse. She was their mayor. She was mostly hey reckless, but I guess war pony just wasn't fitting. And one Marine said to me not long ago, he said tongue in cheek, of course, he said, well, war horse was a rank anyway. So there you go. All right. But to back up a little bit for some history, the Korean War started at the end of June 1950. It was a civil war. Very soon it was a civil war by proxy, but initially North Korea invaded South Korea at several points along the divide between the Koreas. And that was quite a new boundary until the end of World War II. Korea was one nation, the whole peninsula. And then it was separated. They invaded along this 155 mile stretch from the Sea of Japan in the East to the Yellow Sea in the West. The largest invasion was North of Seoul, and that's not surprising. Seoul was then as it is now the capital. North Korea was much to the advantage. I mean, they just pushed down the peninsula. They were better prepared. The South Korean troops stood their ground as they could. They fell back. Some of them deserted. Some of them joined North Korea. And it wasn't for until almost five weeks into the war, close to the port of Pusan in the South and the Southeast, that we were able to stop the route. And that was when the Americans brought in enough troops from Okinawa and Japan, and the Brits came in. And then a firewall of sorts was set up around Pusan, the Pusan perimeter. And as I say, that didn't stop. That didn't in any way turn the war around, but it stopped the route. To go back to the end of World War II, the reason North Korea was so much to the advantage has to do with things that developed at that point and thereafter. Coming up to the end of World War II, we knew of course that Japan was going to be defeated. We didn't for a time know when and how, but we knew it was coming. At the same time, the Allies knew that the country of Korea was going to become independent again. It had been occupied by Japan for 35 years. So now it was going to become independent without any political structure, no President, no National Assembly, no Constitution. What it had was a lot of forces rocking and rolling under the surface. They had Sigmund Rees Nationalists in the South, in the North Kim Il-sung. He was the grandfather of the young man that runs North Korea these days, and he was currying favor with Communist China. So you had all of this going on, but nothing to hold it together. The Allies were concerned, and so they set up a commission, the United States Japan Joint Commission, charged with overseeing Korea, just to see that it all went along okay. This of course didn't please Korea very well, certainly not South Korea, but there you were. In 1948, we left. We were asked to leave, at which point South Korea had elected Sigmund Rees as their President. They had a National Assembly, they had a Constitution, and so they were on their way. At which point Truman asked the United Nations if, going forward, there were any problems that would develop with South Korea. You get it? Okay. If there were any problems with the United Nations, address them, and the United Nations said yes, and that is why this became a United Nations police action conflict. We call it a war of course. In the North, Russia did not pull out. When we left South Korea, we left what material was there. We left some army personnel in country, but without any particular charge. In the North, Russia continued to train North Korean troops, and they moved in material, and so moved forward then two years. That's why they were so much to the advantage. However, once we stabilized the situation around with the Pusan perimeter, Truman asked MacArthur if he would then command United Nations forces at that point. He was Supreme Allied Commander in the Far East in charge of the occupation of Japan. Of course, the general said yes. His first plan, his first major plan was the Incheon invasion, and this moves us back up North to the West. What he wanted to do, and at that point, we thought this war was really going to be resolved quite quickly. His plan was to bring our Marines in through the port of Incheon. Incheon is the port for Seoul. They would link up with the army and come across the Kimpo Peninsula and retake Seoul. Everyone that had the general's ear, and I don't think certainly history tells us there weren't a lot of people that the general listened to, but at least the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington told him to a man that this was fraught with difficulties, and it simply, it just wouldn't work general. I mean, there's no way. They figured out that in September of 1950, there were two days, and in October one day, when there would be three hours of high tide sufficient to bring in the LSTs, and those are the big ships that will then let the troops and so forth out. Three hours to get them in, they would be beached, they would get them out another day. Our troops would have to land on one of the out islands, therefore the enemy would see us, there would be no surprise, and so forth and so on. The more people told MacArthur that it wouldn't work, the more he said it will, and his reasoning was that the enemy would also think it was so impossible we wouldn't do it. So Incheon was brilliant. The Incheon invasion worked, it was MacArthur's last shining hour as it turned out. We did land, the Marines came in, they joined up with the army, we landed, we guess we had to land on Womidow, which is one of the out islands, very few enemy there, some casualties, not what they could have been, but certainly there were casualties. We took the Kimpo Peninsula, we took Seoul, heavy fighting but we took Seoul, and as I said before, at that point, having broke the backs of the North Korean supply lines and pretty much sent the North Korean army into disarray, we were feeling pretty good. Everyone just thought this was going to be over soon, the boys would be home by Christmas. Everyone said that within the newspapers. MacArthur said a little dust up in the North, we're going to go in and take care of that, we'll be out in a few weeks, no need for winter clothing, I mean we're just not going to be there that long, Tino's will be fine. And so in the Security Council, China said, invade North Korea and we will come in on the side of our neighbors, but we ignored them. MacArthur sent the Marines around to Wonsan, which is a port on the east coast of North Korea, landed them there, sent them by a north by west trajectory toward the Choson Reservoir, a reservoir about the size of Lake Tahoe. Our army went up through the center of the country, heading in a north by east direction to Choson, and what happened after that was the Choson, the battle of the Choson campaign, which was, as it turned out, went down in Marine Corps history as one of the terrible battles along with the low woods from World War I, Iwo Jamin Peleu from World War II, and Choson. And then things turned around. We learned some pretty bad lessons coming out of that. The casualties were terrible for the Marines. They were worse for the enemy. China, who we suspect it was in North Korea, and who had said they would come in, came in with brutal force. Their casualties were far worse, as I say. What we realized was A, they were in the war now for good. Seemingly they had endless manpower to hurl at us, and that would always be true throughout the war. Their battles would open ferociously. They didn't necessarily sustain them, but they just seemed to hurl endless troops at us. And no one was going home for Christmas that year. Unless you had your ticket and you were in the rotation, you were staying. And this war was going on for another little bit better than two and a half years. And so it did go on as a war for another six months. North Korea pushed into South Korea, and we pushed them back, and the fighting continued. But by the summer of 1951, things changed. And as I say, I wanted you to have this background. At that point, the peace talks started. And once they opened, it became a holding action. And then the United Nations member countries that it signed on in there were 21 and all, 16 combatants, five non-combatants, held the land that was South Korea, for South Korea, and North Korea did not do the same. They played by their own rules. How else do you put it? And then in short order, the troops moved north, and they coalesced along the divide, which essentially is the 38th parallel. Our troops, the allies on the south side and the no man's land in between and the enemy facing us on the North Korean side. At this point, the topography of Korea becomes a real factor. And that's one of the big changes. Korea is very mountainous. There is a large mountain range, the Tabeck mountains that run north, south along the east, their foothills, which are pretty awesome. So I've been told, spill all the way to the west. If I heard one comment over and over again, it was from these guys, was you climbed one hill and you got to the top and another one was staring straight in the face and it was bigger than the one you'd just gotten up. So now most of the fighting was from the ridge lines. And this meant that everything had to go uphill. I mean, the Army Corps of Engineers did a fine job with roads, but that could only go so far. So you were hauling your weapons and your ammunition and your troops uphill. At the same time, a weapon found its calling in Korea. I mean, it was just tailor made and that was the 75 millimeter recoilless rifle. It had been developed the end of World War II. It saw a little bit of action, but this was, as I say, this was the perfect place for it. A 115 pound weapon, a rifle, and a rifle is direct sight, so you would sight your target, sitting on a tripod. Statistically, it was deadly accurate up to four miles. Was not fired that much, but its beauty was that if there was an enemy not, say, across no man's land, half a mile, a mile, a mile and a half away, and you couldn't get air support and you couldn't get your machine gunners or your mortar men or some other way to address it, you could call in the reckless rifle boys and they could set up and like as not, they could take it out. So they were a treasure in that regard. There was, however, a caveat to this weapon and that was the ammunition. It took a heavy shell. Depending on what it was loaded with, it was 20 and a half to 23 and a half pounds, about 30 inches long, about this big around, and to add to the bulk, it had to be delivered to the gun sight in its cardboard sleeve. So you had heavy, you had cumbersome, you had, you know, just awkward and the guys had to haul these things uphill. So you're asking, you know, the average guy to put one on either shoulder, but this is in addition to about 60 pounds, I'm told, of equipment that you're carrying yourself on your back every day because you're, you know, each troop is carrying food for the day and water for the day and first aid supplies and survival gear and small ammunition and small arms and ammunition first, first aid, did I say that? And flashlight and whatever else. So you've got all of this change of clothing and now another 40 to 50 pounds on your shoulder and you're crawling up these hills that had nothing to do with the Appalachian trails. I mean, this was scrub and this was just, you know, getting yourself up any way you could. And then you deposited those two shells and you went down for two more and you did that as long as the ammunition was needed. I mean, if it was a skirmish or it was a firefight, that might be fairly short. If it was a planned operation, you knew the length of it and you also knew how much ammunition was planned for, which might still be long, but nevertheless you had some idea or it could be an open-ended battle. And this, you know, so these guys are just breaking their backs with this particular and this is the fifth regimen but each of the regimen had their recoilless rifle platoon and they, you know, they all were in the same predicament with this. And it was endless. I mean, it just was up and down and up and down and up and down. In the spring of 1952, the fifth regimen's recoilless rifle platoon got a new commander. And his name was Lieutenant Eric Petterson and he was a horseman. And what I have to say about horsemen is, since I'm one of them, is that somewhere in their mind they think horse and it's not necessarily rational and it doesn't necessarily come to the fore, but it's kind of back here and it may evolve into Geohorse could do something here. He had been, Petterson had been a rancher between the wars. He'd been in World War II. He'd ranched in Arizona between the wars. He had been raised in Jackson Hole so he was totally, totally imbued with the idea of horses. And he watched his men, you know, just break in their backs for a couple of months and he finally decided that perhaps a horse could help. And he got clearance and this now is the very early part of October 1952. He got clearance. They were in reserve at the time, which puts them back, back off the front line five, eight miles depending on where, where they were camped, but at least out of the day-to-day battle situation. Got a jeep, tapped a couple of marines on the shoulder, hitched up a military trailer to it. These are these little utility trailers. You may have seen pictures. They're four foot by six foot welded sides. It's just a metal box and it floats too. It has nothing to do with a horse trailer. I mean, nothing, nothing flips down anyway. But what, what they had took off for Seoul. Patterson knew Seoul. I've been told that he used to get a truck once in a while and just, you know, whoever was around, come on, let's just go down and, you know, shake the cobwebs out for a couple of hours. So once he got to Seoul, he wasn't just roaming around looking for a horse. He pretty much knew. And he went to the, what had been the Seoul race track, which had, racing had stopped the day war began and it was very soon destroyed because in the first go around, the first battle, once the North Koreans took Seoul, they turned it into a supply depot. Sometime thereafter in that gray area when they hoped that the war was going to end soon, there was some hope that racing would start at that point and they went out and at that point everything was destroyed and the horses I'm sure were long gone, either to North Korea's pack horses or slaughtered. But anyhow, now this area, this, what had been the old Seoul race track was an airfield. And they kept the name, they called it race track field and it was said to be the busiest airstrip in the Far East at the time. One runway, excuse me, one runway incoming, outgoing, all day long. Anyone going to the front used this thing. So there was a lot of commotion, which I think helped the development of this story. A lot of commotion of senators, congressmen, all the USO players went through race track field. Eisenhower used it. He won the, one of his campaign promises in 1952 was, I will go to Korea in the war. And there was a secret trip as far as getting him to Korea. And then it was public knowledge. And once they, I mean, he landed at Kimpo and came into Seoul, but then he used race track field. Anyway, around the periphery were still some horsemen. Racing is kind of a closed society. And where are they going to go? I mean, you've got horsemen that in the fog of war are left with horses and, you know, you gravitate to, to what you know. And it certainly is a business, a society of waiting for tomorrow and the next race and a better day and a new horse and all that stuff. So they were horsemen. And Patterson went there and, you know, we don't know how many he had to choose from or anything like that, what made him choose reckless, but he found this little red mare, sorrel, chestnut, whatever you'd like. And they got her in this utility trailer, which must have been a, a trip and a half in itself, but they did. I think what they must have done is, is bring it down an embankment. And then they got her to hop in as small as she was, 11-1. She rode caddy corner in this little metal box. And the only thing was they had, it had, she had a halter on and from the, the ring at the base of the halter, they just looped that a rope to the front and that was it. And she balanced herself and they rode back to base camp, to reserve camp that afternoon. I talked to the guy that remembered, remembered the particular incident. He said they were playing softball. It was still nice enough, it was October. They hadn't gotten into the vicious Korean winters. And it was still daylight. And suddenly this horse rolls through the front gate. And he said, just if everything fell apart, the air turned blue with a lot of what the, and I said, and who was, he said they couldn't, he couldn't remember anything about the game who was winning him or who was up or anything because here is this horse in camp. And it was the start of this amazing, amazing story, the story of the connection of these guys. They named her right away. Petterson stayed in touch with her and it kept his hand in the training. But he turned her over right away to his gunnery sergeant, gunnery sergeant, who was in charge of the company day to day. His name was Joe Latham. And I think it was the major, really magic combination right from the start, right from that night even. Because you had Petterson the rancher, and that's a particular type of horseman. They usually have some money and they're into breeding and, you know, a certain level and end of the sport. Joe Latham was a Southern farm boy and he had grown up working on an aunt and uncle's farm. And what he understood how to do was make a horse do willingly every day what it probably had no interest in doing. And he said to me, I had the great fortune of talking to him before he passed. And he said, if you're good to them, they'll do anything you want. And I really think that was the, his guiding, his guiding principle in all of this. And perhaps even more important, he knew that he had to get the Marines and Reckless to glue together, to bond, to meld into this single, if it was going to work, into the single thing that would have power to it. And guys say that he was always encouraging them to go up to her paddock and play with her and feed her. Did she need anything? And that there was always somebody up there with her. And what you wound up with is a bunch of Marines embracing this horse, figuratively and literally, and making her one of them. And she, in turn, making them her herd, a pride of her herd, because a horse is a herd animal. And a herd is a hierarchy. And she was a three-year-old. And so that puts her low down on the totem pole. And the rest of these guys became the senior members of the herd. She was given rank almost immediately. Within a couple of weeks, she was private first class Reckless. A serial number was H1, never an H2 as far as I know. But, you know, all of the, and the rank, the rank was, was absolutely, you laugh and I laughed a lot. But these were legitimate ranks. And they hold to this day and there weren't even battlefield ranks. I mean, this was, I think all of this was very considered because it was all a way to keep her tight into the unit, so to speak, you know, one of them. She made corporal by January. Fast track, right? Because I'm going. But again, again, in talking, I don't know about the other services, but talking to the Marines, a lot of them, it seems to me, within that 12 to 13-month rotation in Korea, made corporal. So again, you know, she, she made corporal. And by then, a Paxil had arrived and she was an integral member of the, of the platoon. In training her, Guy said that you almost couldn't tell what Latham was doing. It was so low-keyed and so positive. Just gentling her into the, the smells and the sounds of the front zone, of the war zone. Guy said that you would watch him. You'd see him working with her and you just, you know, it just didn't, it almost seemed like they were hanging out. But indeed, she was absorbing all things Marine. She, and she, she most definitely did. She, she loved serrations and she shared them very willingly and she loved mess hall chow. She drank their beer and she drank their beer and fair, fair amounts, fair amounts, some mixed drinks, some whiskey now and then. And, and I'm, I'm told that she liked cigarettes. She really hoped you would open the pack. But if you didn't, she ate them anyway. Anyway, by the new year she was very much integrated into the platoon and it was never a question of should we take reckless? When they went out, whether it was on patrol or on, on, you know, request to go somewhere, she just went. She was though and I think it's important to remember she was brought on to do a job. And the job was they needed a way to get the heavy shells to the gun sites. Had she not worked, had she, had she, you know, had she been skittish, had she bolted? Oh, I'm sure they would have tried her again. But she had to do, that was the, that was the primary reason she was there and everything else came out of that. What they did was initially when, when they, when they had some sort of a, an operation going and they set up their ammo, ammo dump or ammo depot, they would load her up there, usually four shells in terms of photographs. That's the only thing you ever see. They would load her up and someone would walk with her across the open area between the hills. You had your small valleys where the rice paddies were and the berms across them. And so they were traversed this open area and then go up the hill to wherever, wherever the gun sites were. And as I say, someone would go with her. And then they pushed the envelope because what they really wanted, if they could get it, was to have her go alone. And that's what they were able to do. And on, and when they got to that point, they would show her the route over a couple of times. And then Reckless would go to the, go to the ammo dump and get loaded up. Someone would give her a treat and a smack on her butt, they say. And then she would just trot across the berms. They say she was so sure-footed that she never missed her step. And that was, you know, I would, I would think there must be some sensory understanding of what is, I mean, this was a country that was mined heavily. And although everyone was trying to diffuse them, they didn't get them all by a long shot. And had she missed her footing, that could have been the end of her. But she would run across the berms. One guy said to me, it's just as well, they got her to go alone because she was that fast. You couldn't keep up with her. But at times, they would overshoot the lines. And that was that the enemy would shoot beyond the, beyond the front line into, you know, the, the forward camp or so forth or into these open areas. When that happened, she would still go forward. She never, she never spooked. She never turned around. I mean, she was just indomitable, courageous, indomitable, unflinching. I mean, they just, they will talk about it to this day, what she was able to do and just her resolve. Guys said that sometimes they would see her flatten herself against the side of a hill. If there was incoming to kind of keep herself out of the way. And then she would run up the hill and they would unload her. Somebody said to me, she almost looked impatient. Like, just hurry up. I've got more to do. Get this off me. Give her a treat, smack her on the butt and off she'd go down the hill and across the, the open area and get loaded up again. And she would just do this over and over and over. And the way it worked is that these guys were her heard. I mean, I think there's no other explanation. So she was, and the herd is a very powerful thing. And she was functioning within the herd and she had some of her buddies here and some of her buddies here. And that power was, was stronger than, than the idea that maybe as one guy said to me, he said, any horse I've ever known, and this was a rancher that had gone on to raise many, that he was very, very proud of. He said, he said, I never had a horse that wouldn't have spun around and said, I'm out of here. Have a nice day. And he said, a lot of us would have done the same, but she, she held. The end of March, beginning of April 1953, really was a battle where she showed her stuff as never before. And that was the siege of the Nevada cities, the Nevada complex. There were three hills. And we had them and, and the Chinese and the North Koreans wanted them. And they were Reno, Carson, and Vegas. They were, they were excellent observation points for the, for the enemy moving in, troops and supplies for what was going to be the spring offensive. We suspect that this was going to happen. They knew it was going to happen. And so they wanted these hills to block our view. When it opened, as I had made a comment earlier, the Chinese tended to be very savage and, and, and ferocious in their opening. And they just hit all the way along the marine sector and involved many, many hills, but they were after these three. Reno went down and we made a decision not to get it back. And so we fire bombed it so they wouldn't get it either. Carson held and outpost Vegas went down and took us three days to get it back. And that was the most important. Reckless pretty much worked that whole three days and three nights. She just almost, almost on autopilot. She was hauling shells for the recoilless rifles during the day. And, and as you heard earlier, in one day they say she hauled almost four tons of, almost five tons of ammunition. And she was just going back and forth and back and forth. They would pull her off the line and feed her and water her, give her rest when they could. But these guys who loved her dearly also cut her no quarter as they did themselves. I mean, she was, she was a marine and she, she gave her all and, you know, it was, it was no different for them. And they also, they also protected her with their lives as they did each other. There were times she had a flak jacket on and that meant some, some guy did not. What was not talked about initially after the war was that she was also supplying the mortars at night. So she was given a few hours sleep and then she was back out. And that's why I say she was going pretty much 24 seven. The chief of one of the mortar crews called me. And in fact, it was the crew that she was supplying. And he said, if she hadn't supplied us, we would have run out of ammo. And that would have been it for them. So she was extraordinarily important to, to a great many men there. She was wounded twice in these battles in the battle for the Nevada cities. And she wore two purple hearts, a purple heart for each combat injury. And they said that in both cases they were flesh wounds, which certainly can hurt plenty, but they stopped the blood and they patched her up. And she just went back out and went back out to work. So she wore the two, she two purple hearts. She also wore every other metal citation commendation that were awarded to every member of the 75 millimeter recoilless platoon. And she also wore the furrier, which is the rope insignia that the fifth and six regiments wear at the behest of the French Ministry of War from World War One. The armistice was signed in the end of July 1953. No one thought it was going to hold. And so it was pretty much business as usual. The guys still went out. The patrols still went out. Everyone thought that, you know, the calm and the quiet would be blown any day. And reckless certainly was still, still at work. In time, though, I think there was a somewhat of an understanding that she maybe this would hold in a little bit more time for at least, at least laughter. I mean, one of the things about her is she really believed that, well, that she was a part of it. I mean, she understood that she was a part of a group. And that, I mean, it came down to the point of if you were ever hanging out, you know, you and your buddies and having a smoke and maybe waiting for chow or something. If she was in the area, she would just come in and insinuate herself into the group. I mean, she just believed herself to be so much a part of, you know, and it wasn't just hanging back. I mean, it would be head forwarded. And one of the guys that told me this story, he said to me almost apologetically, he said, you know, sometimes we did try to shoo her away. He said, we were never, we were never mean to her. And I said, well, gee, you know, got it. And this particular time they were, they were in reserve and they were waiting for chow for dinner. And she was doing her usual. She was around. And so she was budding in and they would, you know, shoo, shoo. And she'd go off and then kind of like a boomerang. She'd be back and shoo, shoo and boomerang and she'd be back. And then there was one time where they said, shoo, shoo. And she disappeared, which is its own kind of worry, as it turned out, because a couple of minutes later there was a huge commotion from behind the mess tent. And you could hear the cooks and the cooks were just, just howling. And everyone jumped up and they ran around back. As it turns out when, when they baked pie, when pies were on the menu, this was not your mom's nine inch pie. Pies in, in the Marine Corps, and I suppose in all the services were baked in big, big slab pans, two foot by three foot. And they were baked and they were taken out of the oven and then they were set out to cool. And cherry pie was on the menu that night. And they were still cooling. And the only thing was, now a troth had been eaten out of the center of every pie. And the culprit was gone. But it's an indication of, of what she meant to all of them and, and, and how no one ever really got mad at her. All this guy said to me is, we just found another place to cool the pies. So. Reckless made sergeant in April 1954. She was promoted by the top Marine in Korea, the head of the whole First Division, General Randolph McCall-Pate. And he was absolutely in love with this horse. He had seen her functioning with his men on many occasions and he knew what she meant to him, what meant to them and what she had done for them. And it was his great pleasure. And this was a formal ceremony. They built a stage. They took colors from regimen and it was a formal ceremony, as I say. And then the general threw a party for the, for the company. And then in time it was the question of getting her out of Korea. It was always assumed that somehow they would bring Reckless to the States. But when they addressed it, when they looked into it, it wasn't going to be that easy. The government said, uh-uh, no, no, no government funds for bringing this horse out of Korea. Sound familiar? It happens today, right? But at the same time, she was beginning to get some press. She'd been written up in stars and stripes. One of the commanders had left Korea and sold an article to the Saturday evening post. So people were beginning to hear about her. And among them was an executive for one of the freighter lines, the, with the state steamship line. And he said, if you can get her to Yokohama, we'll bring her in deadhead San Francisco free of charge. So the Marines are resourceful, are they not? And now it was just a matter of a two-hour flight. So, you know, somehow, somehow that could be done. What I believe, well, the paper trail goes cold. I mean, the early letters to the government and so forth. There had been a very early letter, though, that had been sent to the Marine Air Wing, which had said, just in very general terms, in the event, you know, that you were ever asked to, to transport a horse, what would you say? And the reply was, in the event, we would consider it a challenge. And that was the end of that. So she disappears out of camp. In fact, one guy said he looked up one day and, you know, she's gone. And he said to a buddy, where did reckless go? And the answer was, oh, they just trucked her down to Kimpo. And Kimpo was where the big airfield is, was then, is now. What I believe happened is that in Washington, where General Randolph McCall-Pate was now the assistant commandant, either he or someone in his office just said, you know, get her out of there. Nobody knows anything. Just look the other way. Because, as they say, she disappears from camp. They took her down to Kimpo. They put her on a flying boxcar. Two hours later, she's at the port in Yokohama. But interesting story, you know, it's both a secret and then it's not a secret because 24 hours before the SS-specific transport had put into port and the Marines had gone on board and they built a cabin for her on deck behind the wheelhouse and they moved in her provision. So she really was all set. She arrived at the port. They put her in a loading crate. They went her up, put her down on deck and Reckless is ready to head to the states. This was a working freighter, very typical of the day freighters that this one left San Francisco, headed out to Hawaii and then Japan and then the Philippines. Their catch was large albacore tuna and they were almost full when Reckless came on board, Reckless and the fish. And then they went up the coast of Japan to Otaru, a port right up at the northern tip and took on a little more fish and then they headed for the states, taking the northern route. Apparently a very, very lovely, peaceful, quiet trip. And I say that only because these stories grow whiskers over time and so there were early stories of the ship hitting a typhoon and Reckless being washed overboard and so forth. But I talked to the refrigeration engineer on that particular voyage and he had always kept a log and he said no. She was, you know, it was, it was very, very peaceful and she was a lovely passenger. And the only thing she required or asked was that when you passed her stall, you should please stop and say hello. And that would be everyone from the cook to the captain. And what the guys found out really fast was keep your smokes in your pocket. Because when you put them on the edge of the stall, they were no more. They put into San Francisco to the Embarcadero the night of November 9th, 1954, too late to present papers and really just perfect. And there has always been a little bit of talk about the captain perhaps manipulating the time time and so forth because Reckless stepped on American soil on the Marine Corps official birthday, which is November 10th. And as I say this year, 1954, there was a pier full of press waiting for her reporters and photographers. Big old graphics cameras, you know, with those big slides. The next morning, the San Francisco examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle both had four column stories about her. That's a lot of ink, right? And one had a picture. Bob Considine, the CBS commentator, had chronicled her every day, her where she was in the Pacific on his radio show. Ed Sullivan had had cable that he wanted her flown east for his show, which didn't happen, but it certainly gives you an indication of the level of interest. She made the gossip column, Herb Cain's Baghdad by the Bay. And then she started on two days of celebrity goings on in San Francisco. She was the guest of honor at the Marine Corps' birthday bash at the Marine Memorial Club. And as the youngest Marine there, she was accepted the first piece of cake to a round of applause, turned around and started on the day as flowers to another round of applause. And then the next day, they took her to something called the Bohemian Club, which is a resolutely all-male bastion in San Francisco. And they say that to this day, she is the only four-legged female that ever bellied up to the bar. Then she went down to Camp Pendleton, signed the guest book, went to Pederson's ranch, small ranch outside of Pendleton for sort of a quarantine. She hung out with the Pederson kids and their 4-H animals for a couple of months. I think really no self-respecting Marine was going to let this darling languish in a Department of Agriculture stall anywhere. I mean that just wasn't going to happen. And actually I talked to Catherine Pederson many years ago after then Captain Pederson had passed. And she said to me very airily, she said, well, she said, Goodwin Knight was governor and we just pulled some strings. So anyway, then she went over to Pendleton, still on active duty, Sergeant Reckless. And that was kind of mid-1955 and she was on active duty until 1960. It was not wartime, it was different, but she represented the regimen at all official functions, promotions and retirements and this and that. She was always in the gallery at the parade ground of VIPs. She led the rodeo parade in the summer, the big rodeo, but I think the thing the guys loved the most is that she went with them on all of their training marches, their long marches. And there is a little bit of a debate. Some of the guys will insist that she walked the whole way and I think maybe not. Maybe they trailered her in between. But whatever the route, when they were ready to go down Main Street of a town, she came to the head of the column and she was right behind the colors going down Main Street USA, wherever that might be out in California on one of their marches. And one of these marches was to San Diego, which was 50 miles. And the whole regimen came into San Diego and they said it was really something to see because once again, she fronted all those men right behind the colors going down downtown San Diego. She had her foals, she had two foals while she was still on active duty. And in 1959, Reckless got her rocker, so to speak. She became Staff Sergeant Reckless, grade E6, pretty good. And she was promoted by the common John to the Marine Corps, who was General Randolph McCall-Pate. And there are some photographs of him. He's almost close to retirement at that point and an older man and looking so incredibly proud to be with this favorite horse of his. And then the next year, she was formally retired. And the warrant read in lieu of pay, fullness and board. And the ceremony was on the parade grounds at Camp Pendleton in the Camp Margarita section. And she stood and reviewed the troops as they marched by. And then they walked her around the whole parade ground one last time. And they tell me that she was a very quiet horse. But this day, just at the exit, just before she left, she stopped and she threw back her head and she let out one giant whinny. As if to say, you know, see you guys. And one of the Marines told me, he said she was really very traditional in that. Because short timers will take a pack of playing cards. And each day you throw out a card. And on that last day as you drive off base, you hand the ace of spades to the MP. And so they said, well, that was her handing off the ace of spades. In retirement, she had two more foals. And thousands of visitors all told more of them came all the time. And they said that all she needed to do was see one of those combat uniforms, the camouflage uniforms. And she would just run over to the fence for something to eat. And that she was, by all reports, belly deep in alfalfa and having herself a fine time. She passed in 1968. And in the summer of 2013, a statue was dedicated to her at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. And I think it's very fitting because it's outside in a glen. And they have her posed in stride as if she is and four shells on her back as if she is once again supplying the recoilless rifles up on the hills of Korea. A number of Marines have said to me, because of what she did, men came out, a good number of men came out of Korea alive who would not have gotten home. If it wasn't for her, she packed that much ammo. One of them fairly yelled at me one day. He said, do the math. You know, he said, she kept our guns blazing. And if we're firing, we don't get fired it so easily. And the other thing the Marines like to say is she's the only horse that came out of Korea with fame and a name. And that's her story. Thank you. Questions? Please? Yeah. How would you select the topic? Well, it was told to me. I met a guy by the name of Charlie Murphy. He was working at one of the New York racetracks when I was doing some freelance for Thoroughbred Record. And I will say to you that a writer is always looking for a good story. And I got to know him and he came over to me one day and he said, I have a story for you. And he started to tell me about her. And I just thought, wow. Someday I'll write this. And I also knew it wasn't just a horse story. It was the guy's story and hers together. Thank you. Yeah. What happened to her foals? Does she have a legacy? No. That would have been nice, I guess. The filly died. The filly was her last and she died quite soon after birth. And the three coats grew up to be riding horses at the stable. And there is no indication that generally a riding horse is going to be a gilding anyway. You just wouldn't, especially with young kids. And this was a stable locator to the kids of the enlisted people there. So that kind of ends that. Right? Wake up the rest of my story. It's got to be a wonderful ending with our continuance of her family. Well, you know, yeah, well. But, you know, her story stays on. But no, there's no indication. Although, I mean, there's one loophole. And that is that her first son was sold off the base early. And we have no record. So, you know, you could always, when we just don't know. I mean, maybe he stayed a stay in. He came back in Vietnam. That was not a good idea. More questions, please. What made history with the selected studs for her or how did that work out? They did. And they always, they bred her up for size because she was so small. They made it her with a quarter horse, a couple of Arabs. I think that was it. And I think maybe a thoroughbred. But they were always looking to, you know, so that her foals would be large enough to do something with. I suppose. Was this a one-time relationship with each of the Well, I don't know. I mean, I mean, did she hang out with them? No. No, I don't think so. Well, then you've got field breeding and then it just can go on and on and on, you know. No, I think I think it was planned. But, you know, some of this is, as with stories, I mean, I had said to you earlier, a guy said to me, who knew she was going to be famous? He said, we just thought she was going to be a good story over a couple of beers. So some of this stuff, as it's happening, doesn't really, you know, there's, I dug for a lot of it, but I think, I'm assuming that they probably field bred her, but at that point they were bringing in a stallion too. Yeah. You do such a good job. How many times have you delivered this? I don't know. A lot, but it changes every time. You can spin a tail, you know. Oh, good. Thank you. Thank you. I think you're really good, but I'm happy to point it. How many times have you done this? Oh, I don't know. I mean, I'd have to count, but I mean, if the book's been out a year, over a year, and I've done it, I've done a fair number, you know, but I promise you, it changes every time. I think of something to say, or I forget something, but thank you very much. Oh, great. More questions, yeah. When they pulled her out of Korea, had her jobs pretty much done? Yes, sure. Well, because that, she came out, I mean, the Fifth Regiment finally came out in March 55. That was the end of it. And she left the end of October 54. And I think by that time, a lot of them you know, they were, everyone was kind of peeling off at that point. I think at that point they were as sure as they were going to be that this line was going to hold, right? Although we're still at war, open conflict. So yeah, I mean, her job, and I think toward the end, she was pretty much hanging out, you know, causing mischief, drinking beer. And her wounds were just superficial. Flesh wounds, yeah, yeah. Although some guys said to me, you know, try them, they hurt. More questions, yeah. Not being a horse person. She was three years old when they went to get her. How old was she when she passed away? 19. 19. What is the average age of a horse? Well, it varies, but her, she did not live to her. She got involved in an accident and they put her down. The Jeju Pony does live a very long time. In fact, and they race them there, and in fact they still race Jeju ponies. Some of them are racing at 20. So she, you know, it would be hard to say, but you know, she might have lived to her late 20s or 30. On the other hand, her back was getting very arthritic. So they might have called it at some point anyway. Amazing testament to the gentleman who actually hit her from the racetrack. I mean, he obviously looked for very specific things and knew that she could be capable and could be trainable. I mean, Joe Latham was the gentleman that really worked with her. Who worked with her and trained her. Well, I quite agree with you. And then, you know, you are the horse person. We've both met a lot of people and they all have their absolute rules for, oh, they can tell the first time they see a horse what they're capable of. So I think you're right. You know, I'm sure he did his, you know, he made his best judgment and she did in flinch and she came and so forth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And also, I think although, you know, you can sensitize horses to all of, I mean, to anything where they realize it's not going to hurt them. But still, the sound of the recoilless rifle blasting is different than a plain landing. So it's not, you know, but I still think that the hurly burly of the racetrack field couldn't have hurt her to have, you know, that sort of commotion around of these planes, you know, coming in and out and probably troops going over and visiting these horses. Oh, look, there's horses here too. Gee, I wonder what they're doing, you know? I mean, so all of that had to been good, good background. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they can, they can, you know, and these, and the Jeju is a very tough little, a tough little horse much stronger than I think they look and they seem to come in two varieties, a miniature horse variety or small horse variety, and scruffy pony variety. And she was the former. And I have to say the first time I saw a picture of her, it was a, just a profile. And I thought, no way, you know, because she had slender, slender white stocking legs and, you know, I just, this is never going to haul anything. And apparently some of the farm boys early on thought, you know, except that if you then get later on, I got kind of some aerial views of her. And she was really built. I mean, she had a butt on her and a strong back and strong shoulders. So I'm, and he would, Patterson would have known that for sure to know to choose her. I mean, she was able to carry the weight. Yeah. Not that I've ever seen. No, no, you know, fair, fair question though. Yeah. Another technical question. Shoeing. Yeah. It's a race horse she probably had shoes. Yeah. What happened during this? They took her down. They had to, they had to keep those feet in order as best they could, especially over the hard terrain. They would take her down to, to around the racetrack where there were still barriers. And get her shot. Yeah. Yeah. And I gather that I remember one story where there was an IG or something and he came through and he was, you know, you're taking care of her feet. Aren't you? And all of that. Sure. Sure. And they just did everything they could. And maybe they did some filing locally. You know, there was one story. They took her down to a, a farrier and she must have taken it. She took a terrible dislike to him. And I guess they just, they, they narrowly got her out of there before she went after the guy. And historically, the, the natives were kind of rough in the showing. I mean, if they had a single pony, they'd string up the back end and things that probably, you know, maybe stayed in her mind like, you're not going to do that again. As a writer, I make up stuff too. You know, you tend to, you know, you have to look at the story and say, well, you know, so any other questions? Thank you. You were a great audience. Thank you very much.