Showing posts with label Cavalry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cavalry. Show all posts
09 October 2011
27 September 2011
Last Week in Photos at the DoD
Last week in photos at the DoD
By: Brant
U.S. soldiers fire at an enemy hiding position during Operation Tofan 2 in Suri Khel, Afghanistan, Sept. 16, 2011. Soldiers worked to clear insurgents from the town and prevent their return. The soldiers are assigned to 6th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Joseph Watson
By: Brant
Labels:
Afghanistan,
Cavalry,
US Army
28 October 2010
3/1 CAV DIV Headed to Iraq
They're going under the name of 3/1 Advise and Assist Brigade, but it's 3/1 CAV and they're headed to Iraq.

By: Brant
The Department of Defense (DoD) announced today the deployment of the 3rd Advise and Assist Brigade, 1st Calvary Division, based in Fort Hood, Texas, to Iraq in support of Operation New Dawn. The unit consisting of approximately 3,800 personnel will deploy in January 2011.
As part of Operation New Dawn, the 3rd AAB will have three primary missions: advise, assist, train and equip Iraqi Security Forces; conduct partnered counter-terrorism operations; and support and protect civilian and military efforts focused on developing Iraqi civil and institutional capacity.
The 3rd AAB was formed from the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, which has been deployed to Iraq three times previously in 2004, 2007 and 2008. The unit is expected to deploy early 2011 and will replace redeploying units with no increase in overall force levels.
By: Brant
Labels:
Cavalry,
Deployment,
Iraq,
US Army
09 September 2010
10th SF Loves the Cav So Much They're Training on Horses!
Before dawn one recent morning, as much of the city slept, a small group of elite Fort Carson soldiers was choppered onto a mountain clearing near Colorado Springs and left to find its way down — in the dark, on horseback.
It’s an image straight out of a military thriller, but it’s exactly how Green Berets from the post’s 10th Special Forces Group have been training for upcoming operations.
The horsemanship training at the Stables at the Broadmoor — which began in late July and concluded last week — offers a rare glimpse at what the unit expects on the battlefield.
Not that you’ll hear that from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
“This is basic training for Special Forces,” said 10th Special Forces Group spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Osterholzer, downplaying the maneuvers as “standard stuff” for soldiers who use nontraditional means to get in and out of the hostile areas where they battle insurgents under the cloak of secrecy.
Green Berets conduct confidential missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan and generally bar reporters from accompanying their troops on training. It’s hardly a secret, however, that horses and other pack animals have been used to great effect by Special Forces operatives in Afghanistan.
By: Brant
Labels:
Cavalry,
Elite Forces,
Training
28 June 2010
Custer's Battle Guidon For Sale
Military history buffs with a few million dollars to spare may wish to check out the upcoming auction of a rare 7th Cavalry artefact from the Battle of Little Bighorn.The swallowtail battle guidon of the 7th Cavalry Regiment was the only military artefact left behind after Custer and his men were defeated by thousands of Lakota and Cheyenne Indians, led by Sitting Bull, in June, 1876.
The battle caused enormous shock in the US at the time - when the young nation was preparing to celebrate its centennial - and has become one of the most celebrated in American military history.
The victorious Plains Indians had stripped the corpses clean of trophies but evidently missed the flag, which was hidden under the body of a fallen soldier.
It was recovered by Sgt Ferdinand Culbertson, a member of a burial party, and was sold for $54 in 1895 to the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Another 7th Cavalry guidon was found months later in an Indian village seized by US troops, but is reportedly moth-eaten and in very poor condition.
Three other guidons were never recovered, while the regimental flag was on a train at the time of the battle.
The Detroit institute is now selling it to pay for new art acquisitions, after admitting it barely ever saw the guidon, as it was almost continually on loan to other institutions.
By: Shelldrake
14 June 2010
Monday Video: Cav in Iraq
Starting your week off with a Cav Bang!
Don't forget to nominate your own videos in the comments below for future inclusion
By: Brant
Don't forget to nominate your own videos in the comments below for future inclusion
By: Brant
Labels:
Cavalry,
Monday Video,
US Army
04 May 2010
Holy Balls! Sniper Gets Kill From Over 8000ft Away!
No shit, kiddies! A British sniper has set a new sniper record with a double kill on a Taliban MG crew.

both graphics from The Daily Mail
Yes, he BROKE BOTH ARMS IN AN IED BLAST and returned to kill Talibanistanis at OVER 8000 FT. Fuckin'-A, this dude is the man
By: Brant
An army sniper has earned a place in military history by killing two Taliban machine gunners from more than a mile and a half away.
Craig Harrison's record breaking shots felled the insurgents with consecutive bullets - even though they were 3,200ft beyond the official range of his rifle.
The Household Cavalry veteran's kills from a distance of 8,120ft beat the previous record by 150ft.
He was using the British-built L115A3 Long Range Rifle, the Army's most powerful sniper weapon.
He was so far away that the 8.59mm-calibre bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target. Scores of Taliban gunmen h-ve fallen to the gun which has been nicknamed The Silent Assassin.
It is only designed to be effective at up to 4,921ft - just less than a mile - and capable of only ' harassing fire' beyond that range.
But Corporal Harrison took his record-breaking shots after his commander and Afghan soldiers were attacked during a patrol in Helmand in November last year.
His vehicle was further back on a ridge, with his sights trained on a Taliban compound. He said: 'We saw two insurgents running through its courtyard. They came forward carrying a machine gun and opened fire on the commander's wagon.
'Conditions were perfect, no wind, mild weather, clear visibility.
'The first round hit a machine gunner in the stomach. He went straight down and didn't move. The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and my second shot hit him in the side.'
The previous sniper record, 7,972ft, was held by a Canadian soldier.
Corporal Harrison, a married father-of-one from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, killed 12 more rebels and wounded seven others. During an extraordinary six-month tour of duty he also survived a bullet that went though his helmet and a roadside bomb.
The blast broke both his arms but he was eventually able to return to duty, his accuracy unaffected.
both graphics from The Daily Mail
Yes, he BROKE BOTH ARMS IN AN IED BLAST and returned to kill Talibanistanis at OVER 8000 FT. Fuckin'-A, this dude is the man
By: Brant
Labels:
Afghanistan,
Cavalry,
Sniper,
UK Army
27 April 2010
BUB: Quick Look At US Military News
The Department of Defense announced today a replacement unit mobilized to deploy as part of the force rotation in support of Operation New Dawn. Approximately 2,700 soldiers from the 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with elements in Montana and Oregon, will deploy in the fall of 2010.
Now pre-mob training normally takes a year, so this is pretty quick on the trigger. It'll be interesting to see how this train-up goes, and the impact it has on families.
+++
With concerns about over-medication of US troops returning from the war, the VA and the Army are looking into non-chemical ways to help soldiers cope.
The US Army's surgeon general on Monday expressed concern about "over-medication" of soldiers returning from combat, saying the military is closely tracking how drugs are prescribed to troops.
The top medical officer in the army, Lieutenant General Eric Schoomaker, said the increasing use of prescription drugs for soldiers recovering from combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan reflected a wider trend in the country to treat pain primarily through medication.
But he told reporters: "I can tell you that we are concerned about over-medication."
The general said that "we're very concerned about the panoply of drugs that are being used and the numbers of drugs that are being used."
"We are monitoring it very, very closely," he said.
Prescription orders for psychiatric and pain medicines for troops have increased dramatically since 2001, according to a Military Times report in March, with one in six service members on some form of psychiatric drug.
About 15 percent of soldiers said they had abused prescription drugs in the past month, according to a Pentagon survey carried out in 2008 and released in December.
Lawmakers have urged the military to examine a possible link between a rise in suicides among troops and the use and abuse of prescription drugs.
Schoomaker said he had led a review looking at prescription drugs and his task force had promoted alternatives to pain killers, including "yoga, meditation, acupuncture, movement therapy, lots of other ways of approaching pain management."
If anyone out there has been successful at dealing with pain/PTSD/etc through any combination of yoga, meditation, acupuncture, movement therapy, or any other non-chemical means, please share...
+++
Northrup Grumman can't wait to become part of the problem, and is moving their HQ the DC bubble. Yay.
Northrop Grumman has chosen Northern Virginia as the new home for its global headquarters, ending a heated competition among Virginia, Maryland and the District for the prestige of playing host to the defense contracting giant.
Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) announced the decision Monday night in a joint statement with Northrop, describing the selection as a victory for what he called his administration's commitment to promoting business development.
"To gain the corporate headquarters of one of the largest global security contractors in the world is a testament to the strong business climate that we are focused on continually improving," said McDonnell, who has scheduled a news conference for Tuesday afternoon at Northrop's Rosslyn offices to discuss the move.
+++
It's fashionable to bag on PowerPoint, and we all love to do it. We've even already posted the image referenced at the start of this article. So why bring it up again? To point out that a bunch of the article is based on the remarks of speakers at the UNC Civil-Military Relations Conference we live-blogged a few weeks back. Aren't we cool?
“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina. (He spoke without PowerPoint.) Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who banned PowerPoint presentations when he led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, followed up at the same conference by likening PowerPoint to an internal threat.
“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”
In General McMaster’s view, PowerPoint’s worst offense is not a chart like the spaghetti graphic, which was first uncovered by NBC’s Richard Engel, but rigid lists of bullet points (in, say, a presentation on a conflict’s causes) that take no account of interconnected political, economic and ethnic forces. “If you divorce war from all of that, it becomes a targeting exercise,” General McMaster said.
Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making. Not least, it ties up junior officers — referred to as PowerPoint Rangers — in the daily preparation of slides, be it for a Joint Staff meeting in Washington or for a platoon leader’s pre-mission combat briefing in a remote pocket of Afghanistan.
Last year when a military Web site, Company Command, asked an Army platoon leader in Iraq, Lt. Sam Nuxoll, how he spent most of his time, he responded, “Making PowerPoint slides.” When pressed, he said he was serious.
“I have to make a storyboard complete with digital pictures, diagrams and text summaries on just about anything that happens,” Lieutenant Nuxoll told the Web site. “Conduct a key leader engagement? Make a storyboard. Award a microgrant? Make a storyboard.”
Despite such tales, “death by PowerPoint,” the phrase used to described the numbing sensation that accompanies a 30-slide briefing, seems here to stay. The program, which first went on sale in 1987 and was acquired by Microsoft soon afterward, is deeply embedded in a military culture that has come to rely on PowerPoint’s hierarchical ordering of a confused world.
“There’s a lot of PowerPoint backlash, but I don’t see it going away anytime soon,” said Capt. Crispin Burke, an Army operations officer at Fort Drum, N.Y., who under the name Starbuck wrote an essay about PowerPoint on the Web site Small Wars Journal that cited Lieutenant Nuxoll’s comment.
In a daytime telephone conversation, he estimated that he spent an hour each day making PowerPoint slides. In an initial e-mail message responding to the request for an interview, he wrote, “I would be free tonight, but unfortunately, I work kind of late (sadly enough, making PPT slides).”
+++
We welcome your thoughts on all these articles.
By: Brant
Labels:
Afghanistan,
BUB,
Cavalry,
Deployment,
Doctrine,
DoD,
Industry,
Medical,
US
25 April 2010
Order of Battle: US 3rd ACR
The 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment official homepage

MTOE from Wikipedia
By: Brant
MTOE from Wikipedia
The history of the 3rd ACR
The 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR), stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, is at present the only heavy Armored Cavalry Regiment in the U.S. Army. The other two regiments that make up the "Lucky 16," the 2nd SCR and 11th ACR, have been organized as brigade combat teams. The regiment operates independently over wide areas and is a highly mobile force that can conduct reconnaissance, security, offensive, and defensive operations. It has over 320 armored vehicles (M1A1 Abrams tanks and M3A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles) and over 80 aircraft (including the AH-64 Apache Attack Helicopter). The regiment has a total strength of over 4,700 soldiers. The 3rd ACR is part of the U.S. Army's contingency force and can rapidly deploy in the event of emergency situations around the world.
The 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, whose nickname is the "Brave Rifles," is currently deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Their mission there is to conduct area security and counterinsurgency operations, develop a credible and capable Iraqi Security Force, and enable economic and political development in a secure and stable Iraq. The current deployment began in the fall of 2007.
The Regiment's history began on May 19, 1846, when it was formed as the "Regiment of Mounted Riflemen" at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. The Regiment was organized into the regular army for "establishing military stations on route to Oregon" but the Mexican War diverted the Mounted Riflemen from their original mission. As fate would have it, the Regiment lost most of its horses in a storm at sea during the crossing to Mexico from New Orleans. As a result the Regiment avoided the usual cavalry assignments of the period such as chasing guerrillas and protecting supply lines. Instead the Regiment fought as infantry in six campaigns during the Mexican War.
It was in the Mexican War that the 3rd Cavalry Regiment earned their moniker of "Brave Rifles" and their motto of "Blood and Steel." Legend has it that as the men of the Regiment lay bloodied and exhausted from fierce fighting at Contreras, Mexico, the General of the Army, Winfield Scott approached to order them into another tough fight. As General Scott approached, each man stood at attention. The General was so overcome by their display of valor that he removed his hat, bowed, and then proclaimed, "Brave Rifles! Veterans! You have been baptized in fire and blood and have come out steel!"
At the end of the Mexican War, the Regiment returned to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and began the grueling 2,000 mile march to the Oregon Territory to accomplish the mission for which it had originally been organized - the establishment of military outposts on the route to Oregon. In December of 1851, the regiment was ordered to Texas, and for the next four years operated against the Indian tribes living in that area. In 1856, Indian troubles in the New Mexico Territory required additional troops, and the Regiment moved further west, marching through and also garrisoning in Fort Bliss, Texas.
The beginning of the Civil War brought the reorganization of the mounted arm of the United States Army. In August of 1861, the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen was re-designated the 3rd United States Cavalry Regiment. The 3rd Cavalry remained in New Mexico Territory as security against hostile Indians and possible Confederate incursion. Confederate forces out of Texas did start a campaign to take New Mexico and Colorado Territories early in the war. They were defeated by Union forces that included the 3rd Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, near Santa Fe, in March of 1862. This defeat caused Confederate forces to withdraw back to Texas.
In December of 1862, the 3rd Cavalry Regiment moved to Memphis, Tennessee to join the western theater of the war. During the Civil War the 3rd Cavalry fought in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and North Carolina, participating in the Chattanooga Campaign as part of the advance guard of Sherman's Army. After the war, the 3rd Cavalry Regiment was again sent to New Mexico to help settle the frontier and participate in the Indian Wars.
From 1866 until 1871 the 3rd U.S. Cavalry participated in operations against the Apache in New Mexico and Arizona. In late 1871 the Regiment was transferred north to the Department of the Platte, which covered an area that covered the states of Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas and Nebraska. The Regiment participated in the Little Big Horn Campaign against the Sioux and Cheyenne. On June 17, 1876, ten companies of the 3rd Cavalry fought in the Battle of Rosebud Creek. This was the largest battle between the Army and the Indians in the history of the American West. The final surrender of Geronimo to elements of the 3rd Cavalry in 1886 signaled the end of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment's participation in the Indian Wars.
In April of 1898, the 3rd United States Cavalry found themselves assembled at Camp Thomas, Georgia as an element of a provisional cavalry division, part of the army gathering for the invasion of Cuba and the Spanish American War. During the Spanish-American War, the 3d Cavalry Regiment participated in the attacks on San Juan and Kettle Hills, placing the first American flag at the points of victory. After the war, the Regiment was ordered to the Philippines, this time for garrison duty. At the outbreak of World War I, the Regiment was transferred to Europe. Arriving in France in November 1917, the Regiment was scattered, and its squadrons operated remount depots for the duration of the war. In 1919, the Regiment returned from Europe and was stationed throughout the Eastern United States. The Regiment executed a garrison mission until the beginning of World War II. Although one historical footnote is that in July of 1932, Major George S. Patton, under order of Douglas MacArthur, led the 3d Cavalry against the Bonus Army during the veteran's protest in Washington D.C.
During the Second World War, the Regiment was re-designated the 3rd Cavalry Group (Mechanized). The Cavalry Group landed in France in August 1944 and became the spearhead of the XX Corps. The Regiment was the first unit of the 3rd Army to reach the Meuse and Moselle Rivers. Troopers of the 3rd Cavalry Group were also the first elements of the 3rd Army to enter Germany. The 3d Cavalry Group was the first military unit to cross the Alps since Hannibal. The 3d Cavalry accounted for over 43,000 enemy troops killed, wounded or captured. After World War II, the Regiment returned to the United States and resumed its garrison activities. It was after WWII that the 3d Cavalry Group was re-designated the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, the name it bears today.
During the Cold War the 3rd ACR was a major part of American military readiness. The first time the 3d Cavalry served on the Iron Curtain was in August, 1955, when it replaced the 2nd Cavalry as part of the Army's Gyroscope plan that rotated entire units between Germany and the United States. The Brave Rifles rotated home in February of 1958. In 1958 the Regiment became part of the Strategic Army Corps, or STRAC, and received four streamers for superior readiness and training. In November of 1961, the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment again deployed to Germany in response to the Soviet threat during the Berlin Crisis. The regiment remained in Germany conducting border operations until 1968 when it was re-deployed to Fort Lewis, Washington. In July of 1972 the 3d ACR moved to Fort Bliss, Texas. Here they became a major REFORGER unit and trained for the defense of West Germany in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion.
During this time, in Nuremberg, Germany, the 2nd and 11th Cavalry Regiments began a close working relationship resulting in a tradition called the "Lucky 13." These two cavalry units trained together and often confronted one another in exercises. Lucky 13 conferences were about war and war fighting and included seminars on fielding new systems, maneuver techniques, and training. When the 3rd Cavalry joined the 2nd and 11th in the General Defense Plan of Europe, the regiments became known as the "Lucky 16." Whenever two of the Lucky 16 Regiments are in the same location the Lucky 16 convenes.
On August 7, 1990, the Regiment was alerted to move overseas in defense of Saudi Arabia. In September 1990, the Regiment arrived in country as part of the XVIII Airborne Corps, and moved into defensive positions south of the Kuwaiti border. On January 22, 1991, elements of I Troop engaged in the first ground combat of the XVIII Airborne Corps. On February 22nd, F Troop led the Regiment across the berm into Iraq. In 100 hours, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment moved over 300 kilometers, and left remnants of three Iraqi Republican Guard Divisions in its wake. As quickly as they deployed, the Regiment deployed back to the U.S. arriving April 5, 1991. In April of 1996, the Regiment completed its move to its new home at Fort Carson, Colorado.
In August 1998, the Regiment was notified that it would participate in the Bosnian peace-keeping mission as part of Stabilization Force 7 (SFOR 7). When the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment deployed, beginning in February of 2000, it represented 75 percent of the American contribution to the Multinational Division North (MND-N), part of Task Force Eagle, and constituted the bulk of the American maneuver element. There were no major incidents or violent demonstrations in the Brave Rifles area of responsibility during their deployment. All nits came home to Fort Carson by October 7, 2000.
Beginning in August 2002, the Regiment began to prepare for operations in the Central Command Area of Operations (CENTCOM AOR). The preparations included a National Training Center rotation, Warfighter exercises with III Corps and V Corps, intensive individual and collective training, weapons qualification, and lane training at Fort Carson.
The 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment is now on their third tour in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Global War on Terror. In 2003, the Regiment was to invade Iraq from Turkey, but was forced to enter Iraq from Kuwait after Turkey denied the United States permission to launch an attack from its territory. This delayed the 3d Cavalry's entry into the war. Once the Brave Rifles arrived in Iraq in late April 2003, it assumed an economy of force mission to secure and stabilize the western province of Al Anbar. This area had been by-passed during the advance to Baghdad, and the Regiment had little intelligence on what would be found there. The Regimental Area of Operations covered one third of the country, or about 140,000 square kilometers. This was the largest single operational area of any unit, including divisions, in the theater and it included the "Sunni Triangle", the part of Iraq that Saddam Hussein, his family, and the senior leaders of the Ba'ath Party called home. Al Anbar was home to 48 primary and 14 sub-tribes and it shared a 900 kilometer western border with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria. The 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment became the nucleus of a Regimental Combat Team named Task Force Rifles. Task Force Rifles included 8,300 soldiers assigned. During this tour 31 cavalry troopers and 18 soldiers of units attached lost their lives. The 3d ACR rotated back to Fort Carson in March of 2004.
In less that eleven months after returning home, the Brave Rifles deployed again to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom III. The lead elements of the Regiment arrived in February of 2005. The Regiment served from South Baghdad province to Western Ninewa Province in Northwestern Iraq. In September, 2005, the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment conducted Operation Restore Rights to defeat an insurgent stronghold in the city of Tal Afar. The Third Armored Cavalry Regiment lost forty-four troopers during its deployment that ended in late February, 2006.
In July 2005, the Army announced that the Regiment would re-station to Fort Hood within months of returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom. The 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment officially departed Fort Carson, Colorado in July 2006.
In October of 2007, the 3rd ACR began its third tour in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The 1st and 3rd Squadrons are deployed in the Ninawa Province: 1st Squadron in Qayarrah, and 3rd Squadron in Mosul. The 2nd Squadron is currently attached to 4/2 ID and serving in the Diyala Province. The 4th Squadron is serving in Baghdad.
The 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment celebrated its 162nd birthday on May 19, 2008 from their deployed bases in Iraq. Under various names the Regiment has seen action during ten major conflicts: the Indian Wars, the Mexican-American War, the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, World War I, World War II, the Persian Gulf War, SFOR in Bosnia, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Through it all the cavalry troopers have lived their motto of "Blood and Steel" and each time earned the Regiment's nickname of "Brave Rifles"!
By: Brant
Labels:
Cavalry,
History,
ORBAT,
Organization,
US Army
23 January 2010
Weekend Humor: Saving the Cavalry
Saving the Cavalry
By: Chuckles
I guess that you never heard how my Great Great Great Half Uncle Herman once saved an entire company of US cavalry from marauding indians.
The indians had been chasing the cavalry all across Arizona (as it would be) and had finally almost cornered them when they stumbled across my GGGHU Herman. Sizing up the situation quickly, he told the Captain to have his company follow and then lead the whole company up an almost impassible path to the top of a mesa.
Now the indians couldn't get up the path, and the soldiers couldn't get down, so it looked like it was a contest to see who could out wait the other.
Things looked pretty good, until the soldiers discovered that their water cask had sprung a leak and that they had almost no water left.
Things didn't improve much when the sun rose and the temperature started climbing, climbing, climbing, and climbing. But the soldiers made it through the first day.
The second day was a repeat of the first, except that it really got hot and, no matter how strictly they had tried to ration the water, by nightfall there wasn't a drop in the soldier's camp.
The soldiers were, needless to say but I will anyways, pretty ticked off with my GGGHU Herman - they figured that if they hadn't come up onto the mesa they might have had a slim chance to evade the indians. But my GGGHU Herman told them not to worry because he knew these indians well and they couldn't keep up a siege for very long.
When the soldiers asked my GGGUH Herman what he meant by that he told them that the longest that this tribe of indians had ever been known to keep siege was a week.
Well, since there were five days to go and no water to go with it, the soldiers started looking pretty mutinous, but my GGGHU Herman quieted them and quickly set them to work cutting down all of the saplings they could find on the top of the mesa.
The soldiers couldn't figure out what my GGGHU Herman was up to, but any action was better than nothing - although they did start to grumble when he told them to hollow the saplings out and join them together.
Finally, unable to take it any longer, the company's SgtMaj asked my GGGHU Herman what he was going to do with the hollow saplings.
"Get water.", my GGGHU Herman replied.
"Where?", he was asked.
"From down there.", he replied pointing to the small spring that bubbled (for some unknown geological reason) out of the side of the mesa and into a pool about half way down.
"How?", he was asked.
"Just wait.", he said and settled in to wait until the sum sank.
Finally the sun sank and my GGGHU Herman supervised the soldiers as the fitted the hollow saplings together and slowly lowered them over the edge of the mesa and down until they formed a pipe from the pool to the top of the mesa.
"Well?", the SgtMaj asked.
"Just wait.", my GGGHU Herman replied as he rummaged in his saddlebags and pulled out several glass jars.
My GGGHU Herman then walked over to the pipe, opened the jars, and dropped the contents carefully down the pipe.
Within minutes water started bubbling out of the pipe and soon the soldiers had all the water that they needed as well as full canteens and waterbags.
"What did you put down that pipe, man?", the Captain asked.
"Pickles.", my GGGHU Herman replied, "Everyone knows that dill waters run steep.".
By: Chuckles
08 January 2010
Friday Museum: The US Cavalry Museum at Fort Riley, Kansas
Surprisingly not rolled into the Armor Museum, given the shared history of the branch, The US Cavalry Museum is at Fort Riley, Kansas, an old Great Plains cavalry fort that's now home to the 1st Infantry Division.
The online store is here.
We like the "Army of Two" shirt ourselves...
By: Brant
(Please feel free to nominate your own museums to highlight in this recurring series!)
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