Sgt. York

I fell in love with this horse when we were at Ft Myers. We were in and out of the stables often feeding, checking on the horses, and taking them out of their stalls to walk around.  The Army has several horses, alot more than the Marines have, but they need a larger number due to the services they do just at Arlington alone. There are 4 Platoons of horses. The Platoons are either all white or all black. One Platoon is always gone. Each platoon gets a one week liberty pass to go to pasture each month and run around and be a horse! Lucky for me Sgt York wasn't on liberty. Since Sgt York wasn't on liberty i was able to spend quite a bit of time with him. He always poked his head out when i came by so i would stop and we would have some good chit chats. He thought he should chew on my hair while we were having these awesome discussions though.....Sgt York has some pretty incredible history. I loved his original name to start with. He came to the Army as a race horse who had slowed down and was not considered a winner anymore. His name was All Aboard Jules. Yep, that name just did NOT blend in with the other names in the stables so he had a name change to Sgt York. Being a race horse the guys at the stable weren't exactly sure what Sgt York's job was going to be. They decided to see how he would do with some mock combat training. The soldiers fired machine guns from his back and threw grenades along side him and he basically didn't even blink. Sgt York had secured himself a job! He is most famously known for being the riderless horse for President Reagan. He had Reagan's boots in the stirrups, turned backwards and made the famous walk seen around the world.  We talked about that day. I told him i watched him from Okinawa and that i thought he had done a beautiful job and he was a darn special horse to have had that honor for President Reagan.  I might have some better pictures of him on my real camera. The lighting in the stables isn't the greatest and the sun coming in reflecting off of everything made it hard to get some crisp pictures. But these are on my phone and i am blogging from my phone right now....But he is a beautiful horse. 

Sgt York is also a fun horse with a sense of humor. Sticking out his tongue at me when i told him my hair was off limits! My hair must really resemble hay....all the horses kept trying to lick and nibble on my head!