In the early spring of 1968, that mobility would come into play during one of the war’s most prolonged encounters, one that struck fear in the heart of President Lyndon Johnson and gripped the attention of the nation. We had mobility and firepower that the other Army units simply did not have. It was a new concept for the Army, swift deployment of light infantry troops, their artillery fire support, supplies and equipment-primarily by helicopter. He knew the value of the horse and rifle to the cavalry soldier.įifty years after my Grandpa learned the lessons of mobility from atop his horse, I found myself an infantry lieutenant with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), the “1st Air Cav,” in Vietnam. And if you got just a little bit of water left in your canteen, give it to your horse first.” Grandpa was a sergeant in the 1st Cavalry in 1917 and he was deployed along the Arizona border during Brigadier General John Pershing’s Mexican Punitive Expedition against the revolutionary Pancho Villa. “Joegy,” I recall my grandpa saying after he’d had a few beers, “Your two best friends are your rifle and your horse. 9, but when the forward companies made contact with the NVA, we were ordered to be picked up by chopper to leapfrog ahead and become point element.”
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