Parting Shot

U.S. Calvary School

 

Student Soldiers

 

The bluecoats charge across the rolling hills of southern Montana on a hot summer day.  Pistols are out, firing into the air, announcing the troops presence to the Indians who are the object of the attack. A big fight is brewing…

 

Sounds like Custer’s Last Stand, doesn’t it?  But this is 2007, not 1876.  And the soldiers are students at the U.S. Cavalry School, who are applying their lessons to a reenactment of the Little Big Horn battle.

 

The school is the brainchild of John Doran and some of his friends.  They got things underway in 2001 at his ranch in eastern Washington and have never looked back.  Men and women, young (13) and old (78), expert riders and novices, they’ve all come to learn how the cavalry operated in the Indian Wars.

 

Each student is issued a horse, a uniform, a saddle (a McLellan, lighter and more contoured than the Western), a cot, and a walled tent. Each is given a ’73 trapdoor Springfield rifle and a period Colt. And they spend eight days living the cavalry life.  As Doran says, that life is a unique experience:  “It’s very much interactive, the student and the horse together doing things.  Whereas on a trail ride, so much of the time is just ‘do-de-do-de-do’ up the trail.”

 

Some of the time is spent in the classroom, learning the history and politics of the time.  Generally, about eight instructors, many with US Military Academy experience, teach each class of 12 to 15 students.  But they also spend plenty of saddle time, learning how to ride in twos, fours, files and columns, how to wheel to the right and left, how to form a skirmish line—and how to fight.  When they go out on patrol, they are attacked by hostiles.  Doran says students are surprised; this ain’t the Westerns: “They get to see how cumbersome it was to ride a horse with that carbine and then dismount and load your gun, and get your horse handler to take care of your horse. It’s an eye-opener.”

 

The battles aren’t totally accurate—nobody uses real bullets in the firefights.  But the students do get a chance to shoot live rounds at a nearby firing range.  There are more than a few sore shoulders and tired hands afterwards.

 

Then there’s the Little Big Horn experience.  Last year, for the first time, the school held one of its sessions at the legendary battlefield, riding the same land that Custer and his ill-fated command covered more than 130 years ago.  And for a few of the top learners, the experience is multiplied by the chance to ride in a reenactment of the fight.  “It’s like a Wild West show,” says Doran.  “Lotta action.  Lotta horsemanship.  Lotta shooting.  Lotta fun.”

 

And the knowledge that they’ll get to ride away from the battlefield, to reminisce about their experiences as bluecoats, charging across the rolling hills of southern Montana.  That’s something that Custer and his boys never got the chance to enjoy.

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