Sgt. Reckless: America's War Horse

by Robin Hutton

  “And I did things like, I’d go up to her and tap her on the leg and say, ‘Down Reckless,’ and she would just lay down flat. And then I’d say ‘Quiet!’ . . . and I only did that once or twice, just to show them. But when I said, ‘Quiet Reckless,’ her eyes would just show fear. . . .

  “It was just so sad, that combat fatigue she had in her. And so I never did that again.”

  Sickler also arranged special sleeping arrangements. “I made this bed for her with these leaves and pine needles and she knew what I was doing and she’d be watching me make this. And then I’d say, ‘Okay Reckless . . . down.’ And she’d come in and paw it a little bit and then she’d lay down and then she’d just go, ‘Ahhhh,’ and just gave a sigh of relief.”

  Reckless seemed to suffer nightmares, given that she’d kick and grunt in her sleep. “I felt so bad for her . . . but she just enjoyed sleeping in that tent. And I would sleep behind her and we were really attached.”

  Sickler also made sure to get just the right feed and grooming products for her. “To get her back into condition, what I did was, I got some special feed for her and I got a molasses mix, which really shines up your hair. . . . Just looking at the horse I could tell her condition and what she probably needed to get back in condition. And she loved it.”

  The private first class made sure Reckless’s coat shined and soon had her looking like a spit-and-polished Marine. “I’d brush her and I’d spray her with a spray I still use today called Laser Sheen, and it gives that coat such a shine and it feels like silk after she has a couple of layers on. And she would just shine with that. She sparkled. And she looked very healthy after about two months and her whole ‘horsenality’ changed because that horse went through a lot and no one understood how much she went through. I think it was taken for granted that this was normal for a horse.

  “But this was so not normal. And she was under a lot of stress. And I get the feeling that she tried to please so much. They’d put her [under] such stress. She showed the stress when I got her. It was bad and sad.” But Sickler knew his job was to get her looking and feeling better—and he happily did everything possible to help this exceptional Marine.

  “I had a special relationship with her. I loved the horse because she adapted to me. She needed a friend—desperately needed a friend when she came here—and I could sense that. And even having a friend made her look better. She was looking forward to seeing me after a week of taking care of her. And all you had to do was to go up and scratch her behind the ear—that was where her wound was—and maybe it comforted her a little bit. She looked forward to just being talked to a little bit.”

  Reckless even sensed when Sickler was coming to visit. “If I hadn’t seen her for a couple of days she would whinny—horses can set patterns and they can tell how you drive up, where you park your vehicle and they could figure out who it is. So she would whinny when I drove up. . . . She got the routine and looked very forward to seeing me and I’d give her a little treat every night—and maybe that’s why she looked forward to seeing me.”

  Sickler went back to school to learn natural horsemanship, using the Pat Parelli method, which focuses on recognizing and classifying horse behavior. “There’s right-brain horses, extroverts and introverts in that class. And there’s left-brain extroverts and introverts. A right-brain horse is a flighty horse, extrovert, and [is] kind of nervous. And if he hurts you, it’s unintentionally. Reckless was a left-brain introvert. She was very smart, but she was smart enough to know what she could do and [what] not to do. . . .

  “A left-brain is probably much easier to train than a right-brain. But then, you get the introverts and extroverts within each classification.”

  Sickler prepared Reckless for the various ceremonies she attended. “I was told what the ceremony was about and to have her there at a certain time. So I went down the night before to the stable and got my Laser Sheen on her, my special spray, and got her all shined up and her mane and tail fluffed out. And I’d get her there.

  “My favorite memory of her, if I had to pick out one, is when some of these guys would start pestering her and she’d look for me to protect her. And if I wasn’t around close, then she would pin her ears and they thought that was funny. I didn’t think it was very funny. So I guess my one memory would be, and I could see it today, is how she would look for me at these times—just like a little kid looking for its mom.

  “So she was such a good horse that way. She needed comforting and I could see her in battle, the way she would stand up to pressure. She wanted to please so bad. She did all this to please you. . . .

  “It was her job, but she wanted to please these troops. And that’s the way a left-brain horse operates. And she was more left-brain than any horse I ever had. But she did all this stuff in combat because she wanted to please. And I hope they at least gave her a little pet or something when she made these trips up and down the mountain. That’s all she was looking for was just a little comforting . . . and she’d give her all for that. She’s just a good-hearted leatherneck troop, that’s what she was . . . that wanted to please.

  “I felt very sad when I said goodbye to Reckless. I know there were a few tears. I walked up to her, put my arm around her neck and said ‘Goodbye Reckless, I’m leaving,’ and the tears started to come and I walked away.

  “I was so attached to her and she watched me walk away . . . and it chokes me up today. . . . I guess I felt that way because I felt, ‘Who’s going to protect her here now?’ You know? ‘Are these guys going to pester her?’

  “And Reckless knew I was leaving. She knew I was leaving because she watched me sadly as I walked away and said goodbye. And if I told someone who didn’t love horses this, they’d think I’m a crackpot thinking that a horse knew this. But they do!”19

  Old Friends Reconnect

  Reckless in retirement was a magnet for old friends from the war who came to visit her at Pendleton. Bill Riley, who relieved Pedersen during the battle for Outpost Vegas, was stationed about forty miles away, in El Toro, California. More than a half-century later, he gleefully recalled trips to Pendleton to visit her. “We’d take the kids down there, and I’d go down to see Reckless. . . . It was funny because they would have some platoon leader lead her in all the parades and he would get all excited [angry] when he would have to clean up after her,” Riley said with a mischievous grin. “I remember taking a lot of guff when there was a parade—they always seemed to want to blame me for having to clean up after the horse.”20

  Riley’s children grew up hearing tales of Reckless, as did most children of the Marines who served with her. “I told my kids all about her—what she did in the war, what a hero she was,” Riley said.21 His daughter, Mary Alice, even wrote a school book report about Reckless.

  As Marines returning from Korea reported to Camp Pendleton, many joyfully reconnected with Reckless. “We had just gotten off the ship that brought us from Korea and we were headed to the new barracks,” PFC John Newsom recalled. “We were in a 6/6 truck as we headed down the main road coming from the main gate at Pendleton. Suddenly, somebody yelled, ‘Hey look, there’s Reckless!’ Sure enough, there she was in the pasture in front of the general’s house, just off the main road. It was sure good to see the ol’ gal again, and it’s an image that has stayed with me ever since.”22

  The “Mare-ternity Ward,” or Foaling Around

  For weeks in the early spring of 1957, a large sign placed on a hill overlooking Camp Pendleton tantalized Marines with a simple phrase: “It’s a . . .” On April 5, the mystery ended when someone at the base completed the sentence with a simple word: boy.

  Reckless had foaled her first colt, Fearless, much to the delight of the Marines and her admirers across America.

  It was the kind of feel-good story the news media gobbled up—and when reporters swarmed Pendleton, they found five more words added to the makeshift birth announcement: “Mother and Son Doing Fine.” The hand-painted declaration was so prominent on the hi
ll that drivers on the nearby Pacific Coast Highway could see it.

  Newsreels carried footage of the sign that announced the birth of Fearless. USMC History Division, Quantico, VA

  Reckless and Fearless in the “Mare-ternity Ward.” Fearless was immediately enlisted in the Marine Corps. USMC History Division, Quantico, VA

  Reckless Promoted to Staff Sergeant (E5)

  On June 15, 1957, just a few months after she became a mother, Sergeant Reckless became Staff Sergeant Reckless. Her second promotion, by the 5th Marines, was acknowledgment “for attention to duty, devotion and loyalty to the Marine Corps.”23

  As before, Randolph Pate, now a full general and Commandant of the Marine Corps, was behind the order. He felt Reckless’s devotion and loyalty to the Corps made her “particularly worthy of reward.”24 The honor was made doubly meaningful because it came from the Corps’ highest echelon; since approving Reckless’s first promotion in Korea, Pate himself had risen to his branch’s top job, twenty-first Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. The Corps’ magnanimity extended to Fearless, who was upgraded to private first class at the same ceremony.

  “DEVOTION AND LOYALTY—For ‘attention to duty, devotion and loyalty to the Marine Corps,’ Sgt Reckless was promoted to staff sergeant June 12 by Col Richard Rothwell, CO 5th Marines. The CMC ordered the promotion for Reckless, a Korean racing filly pressed into serviced as an ammunition carrier during the bitter fighting for Outpost Vegas late in the Korean War. During the Camp Pendleton promotion ceremony, Reckless’ two-month-old colt, Pvt Fearless, was elevated to private first class.” Original photo caption, the Pendleton Scout, June 20, 1957, p.5. Photo courtesy USMC History Division, Quantico, VA, and National Archives

  Pate left the formalities to the commanding officer of the 5th Marines, Colonel Richard Rothwell. “We gave her a regimental parade and she was presented her promotion at the parade,” Rothwell recalled. “I stood up and had to read the proclamation of her promotion, as if she were a human being,” he chuckled. “The whole regiment was in the background, with a regular regimental parade, the same type of parade that we would give anyone else who we were so honoring for a promotion.”25

  “I was there,” Art Sickler remembered more than a half-century later. “I was in dress blues and it was so dang hot. . . . I got her ready once the guys from the stables hauled her over in her trailer and dropped her off. . . .

  “I’d get her harness on, brush her, get her in her blanket, and I was in charge of her at the ceremony. I’d get her to where she belonged and stand there while the ceremony went on.

  “We had the whole ceremony, just like she was a human being. And she got the commission and she loved it. She loved that kind of attention. I think she understood exactly what was going on and she was proud of it.”26

  Rothwell “pinned new chevrons on mother and son, and the equine-type Marines stood at attention as the unit passed in review.”27

  Losing a Friend

  On December 22, 1957, Andrew Geer died peacefully, at fifty-two, after a brief struggle with melanoma. “By the time they discovered it, it was over—it just took over like crazy,” Geer’s nephew, James Taggart, explained. “He was larger than life—just an unbelievable guy,” Taggart said, “and he was a descendant of Daniel Boone.”28

  Andy Geer rides in the front seat of Governor Warren’s car as the military attaché in President Eisenhower’s inaugural parade. James Taggert

  John Wayne and Andy Geer on the set of The Sea Chase. James Taggert

  Geer was a Marine to the end, directing the Toys for Tots Christmas drive for the Corps until just before the cancer took him.29

  According to an obituary the next day in the Independent Journal, Geer packed a lot of living into fifty-two years. First were the athletic achievements. In the late 1920s, he played football at the University of Minnesota, where teammates included future pro football hall of famer Bronko Nagurski. Geer also boxed at Minnesota, where he was Big Ten Conference heavyweight boxing champion two years running. He even picked up extra cash as a sparring partner for world champion fighters Jack Dempsey, Tommy Loughran, and Mickey Walker.

  Andy Geer also played college baseball, turning semi-pro after graduation. And in the late 1940s, he scouted for two teams in the old All-America Football Conference, the Brooklyn Dodgers and Cleveland Browns.

  Geer served with the British Army before joining the Marines as a captain in 1943. He saw action in Saipan, Guam, commanded an amphibious tractor battalion at the landing at Iwo Jima, and commanded the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment during the Korean War—one of only two Marine Reserve officers to command an infantry battalion in Korea.

  “He was a military attaché in Eisenhower’s inaugural parade,” Taggart noted. “Each state governor had one military attaché to ride in his car, so Andy rode with California Governor [and future United States chief justice] Earl Warren when Eisenhower was elected.”30

  In a writing career that spanned a quarter-century, Andy Geer wrote mostly about what he knew: war. His short stories and articles appeared in magazines including Redbook, Collier’s, Detective Tales, and, of course, the Saturday Evening Post. Besides the book about Reckless, Geer’s other published works included the non-fiction bestseller The New Breed, about the Marines in Korea; Mercy in Hell recounted his service as a volunteer ambulance driver for the American Field Service during World War II; the front cover blurb of Geer’s historical novel The Canton Barrier describes it as “a crackling adventure novel of a Yank pilot who would risk anything for money—and a girl.” Thanks to Hollywood, his best remembered book is probably the bestselling fictionalized true story The Sea Chase, which followed a German freighter dodging danger on the high seas at the outbreak of World War II. The Sea Chase was adapted for the screen in 1955 as a vehicle for John Wayne and Lana Turner, although Geer did not write the screenplay.

  However, Andy Geer did work a bit in Hollywood, receiving a story co-credit (with Charles Grayson) for 1951’s The Wild Blue Yonder, starring Wendell Corey, Forrest Tucker, Walter Brennan, and Phil Harris.31 And he was technical advisor on one of John Wayne’s best-known war pictures, Sands of Iwo Jima, in 1949; Geer had actually fought at Iwo.

  Andy Geer’s name is also associated with a cultural contribution that had nothing to do with movies, novels, or athletics. This achievement was purely alcohol-related. According to one account, in 1954 Geer helped bring an obscure Tahitian mixed drink to prominence when he helped popularize the mai tai. Geer’s collaborator in recreational mixology was bandleader and prolific composer Harry Owens of the Royal Hawaiians, the house orchestra at the iconic, famously pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu.

  Competing accounts maintain it was either restaurateur Vic Bergeron (a.k.a. “Trader Vic”) in 1944, or his rival, Ernest “Don the Beachcomber” Gantt, in 1933, who concocted the cocktail. But in his 1970 autobiography Sweet Leilani: The Story Behind the Song, Owens told his own mai tai tale. According to Owens, one evening at the hotel’s Surf Bar, Geer casually mentioned “a terrific rum drink called a Mai Tai” he had tried during a recent trip to Tahiti. Since the exotic drink had not yet reached the mainland, the two friends resolved to duplicate it. After a dozen tries, and a curious crowd growing to fifty—including Pulitzer Prize–winning author James Michener, who suggested adding orange curacao to the mix—the drink was perfected and the recipe printed in the next day’s menu, with the following warning: “When you’re having trouble singing the first four bars of ‘Sweet Leilani,’ you’ve had enough Mai Tais.”32

  Geer was the son of a thoroughbred trainer and breeder, so it’s not surprising that he was so devoted to the sweet-natured, impish little Mongolian mare he met in Korea. He was her greatest advocate and ambassador, the one who stepped up to ensure she was rotated stateside; found her passage; personally paid the fare of her handler, PFC Moore; fought with U.S. Customs and the Agriculture Department to clear her entry to the United States; and untangled all the last-minute hit
ches so she could be so joyously honored at the Marine Corps anniversary celebration in San Francisco, including replacing Reckless’s blanket and ribbons so she would look her best when introduced to her clamoring American fans. Geer’s sister, Marion Erickson, said her brother put his money where his heart was. In a July 31, 1966, letter to the San Diego Union, she claimed Geer ultimately paid $1,200 out of his own pocket—equivalent to more than $8,500 today—to get Reckless stateside.33

  But of everything Andrew Geer did on Reckless’s behalf, it was his writing that helped the most to spread her inspiring story. In his last-ever article about Reckless, for the Saturday Evening Post, Geer proposed a plaque for Reckless’s quarters at Pendleton:

  Home is the Warrior. Let Marines who pass this way take notice of honors won and the esteem in which she is held by those who were with her when the battle was in doubt. Remember, Marine, here is an unusual Marine. May we have a half a million as true.34

  Fortitude in Peacetime

  In March 1958, the “unusual Marine” participated in a 110-mile roundtrip hike to Camp Elliot with nearly 2,400 fellow Marines—to prove they were still good “foot soldiers.” (Interestingly, “Shanks’ mare” was a nickname for a foot soldier, “the common, garden-variety of gravel cruncher who picks ’em up and puts ’em down. The phrase ‘shanks’ mare’ has all but disappeared from [our] vocabulary.”35)

  The column of marchers stretched for about seven miles and evidently Reckless ran into trouble along the way. The San Diego Union reported that she marched just a few paces behind the 5th Marines’ commanding officer Colonel Donald Schmuck, who led the hike to camp.