Veteran's Day Parade

Photo by Ty Holland

I rode the wonder horse in the Vet's Day parade yesterday and, for a change, he was good. I didn't think things were going to go well when I arrived at the stables because Apache was running around in his pen. It was cold and dark and he knew something was up so he reacted to this situation in his normal scary fashion. But, when you've ridden a horse at his worse, nothing much intimidates you anymore. For whatever reason, by the time I had him groomed up, he was nice and calm.

We arrived in our normal staging area in good time and tacked up the horses. Next we drove the trailers over to the city park where the parade would end and then shuttled the drivers back. We were the last entry in a parade of about 52 participants. Most of the other parade entries were marching bands and military personnel on foot. Since we were last in line, we could watch the entire parade before it even began.

The crowd was fairly substantial and even though there were only seven of us riding, we often could not hear the commands of the XO as we marched down the street. Sierra Vista is a military town and the crowd was pretty patriotic--and loud. We performed out handful of parade maneuvers with our carbines resting on our right thighs. You learn over the years how to carry the rifle without all the blood draining from your hand as you ride.

When we finally got to the park, we held a short ceremony in which the city leaders, most of whom are retired military, reflect on the sacrifices of our veterans. The speeches were followed by a 21-gun salute from a howitzer battery which our horses stood pretty well for. We did have a problem with Cochise who somehow wound up on the end of our line. He doesn't like being on the end and constantly tried to fade back behind the line of horses. I finally asked Monte's rider to fallout and take the end. Once Cochise was safely bracketed by two other horses, he calmed down and stood still. Other than that everything went well and the Wonder Horse got a cookie for being so good.