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FORT HUACHUCA — A quartet of troopers of B Troop, 4th U.S. Cavalry (Memorial) thundered across historic Brown Parade Field Friday in a graduation charge earning them their brass spurs.
After three months of attending a riding school on this historic U.S. Army Cavalry post, two captains, a specialist and a private first class were officially made members of the volunteer re-enactment unit.
“Today’s graduates have endured three months of B Troop Cavalry Riding School and passed their final riding test only last (Thursday) night,” said honorary Capt. Jay Hizer, the unit’s commander.
The only thing left was the charge.
 Honorary Capt. Jay Hizer, commander of B Troop, 4th Cavalry (Memorial), right, presents brass spurs to Pfc. Kenneth Burcaw during a ceremony Friday on Brown Parade Field. The ceremony is to recognize new riding school B Troop graduates. Mark Levy•Herald/Review |
Friday’s event was the first time the memorial troop held such a graduation ceremony for the public.
The preparation for horse cavalrymen who are part of the Army’s mounted tradition through memorial units such as B Troop is different from recruits experienced in the late 1800s, Hizer said.
“New recruits who were often recently arrived from Europe entering into service in the Army cavalry of the 19th century typically had no riding experience at all,” Hizer said.
Reading an account published in the 1800s about a training event in 1870, the author noted that most of the training was for the amusement of the instructors, who would entice the recruits to stick their spurs into their mounts, ending up with the horses bucking and the men falling to the ground.
“Originally, there was no formal training program at all and new recruits (to the existing memorial unit) were expected to already know how to ride or to figure it out on the job,” Hizer said.
Since then, he said, “training has gradually become a little more structured and organized” while maintaining the original essence of cavalry training of the 19th century.
“After all, B Troop represents the Army cavalry of the Old West, not the Queen’s Household Cavalry of England,” Hizer said.
B Troop’s training included riding, how to take care of a sick horse, how to clean and maintain tack, and how to handle a pistol and saber while mounted.
“They have been taught the basics of performance riding and the essential element of the classic military seat,” the troop commander said.
After completing the charge on the parade field that is located between the old 1880s two-story wooden barracks that once held cavalrymen and infantrymen of the late 19th century on one side of the field and the historic home of the post’s senior officers on the other, Hizer awarded each of the new members of B Troop their spurs.
The four presented spurs were:
• Pfc. Kenneth Burcaw, of the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade.
• Spc. Andrew Tehvand, of the Raymond W. Bliss Army Health Center.
• Capt. Franklin Kessler of the 309th Military Intelligence Battalion.
• Capt. John Mark of the Staff Judge Advocate’s Office.
They are now members of the same unit whose lineage goes back to a group of troopers who mounted up on Brown Parade Field in 1886 and headed off on a four-month mission to find Geronimo. The unit successfully forced the Chiracuhua Apache to surrender in New Mexico.
Burcaw, who is no stranger to horse riding, hails from Olivet, Mich., the state that was the origin of the 7th Michigan Cavalry, which was led into charges during the Civil War by Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer. After the war, Custer, then a lieutenant colonel, would lead many troopers of the 7th U.S. Cavalry to their deaths at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, which saw him defeated by Native Americans.
For the 31-year-old Burcaw, that is history. For him, B Troop is a way to be part of the Army’s mounted tradition while displaying that part of the service’s past to the public.
Working in the 111th’s headquarters company in the electronic maintenance section, the soldier, whose wife, Desiree, and two children, Kenneth, 5, and Alana, 3, witnessed the charge, said he learned to ride on his brother-in-law’s property in Michigan. His brother-in-law is a farrier.
As for his horse, Chili, Burcaw said he has never been thrown by the animal although the mount has tried on a number of occasions.
“Chili is a kind of a scary cat,” he said.
The horse is “afraid of anything orange or bright yellow, like traffic cones or fire hydrants,” Burcaw said.
As a member of the volunteer group, Burcaw sees as his mission is to represent the period of Army cavalry soldiers during the Indian War period.
Hizer noted the troop, which now has 11 members, will be busy this summer with gigs, including attending a rodeo in Price, Utah, where they will be part of the Army’s recruiting program.
For Burcaw and the memorial unit’s other members, it’s not just riding and doing cavalry maneuvers and charging across a parade field, for they have to care for their mounts and do other duty associated with those days more than a century ago.
That means feeding their horses twice a day, grooming them, riding them and then doing the more infamous stable work of the late 1880s — shoveling manure.
HERALD/REVIEW senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4614.
bob wrote on Jun 1, 2008 7:59 AM: