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RECKLESS: ARCHIVES BRANCH, U.S. MARINE CORPS HISTORY DIVISION (COLL/802) (2); MONUMENT: MARINE CORPS INSTALLATIONS WEST
A MONUMENTat Camp Pendleton, CA, captures Sgt. Reckless
in one of her greatest moments during a Korean War battle.
The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia has a similar
statue, and a third was unveiled this year at Kentucky Horse Park.RECKLESS CARRIES
an ammunition pack
down a hill in 1953.
At left wearing a
blanket, she inspects
the guard from the
First Marine Division.THE ONLY ANIMAL TO HOLD
official rank in the Armed Forces,
Sgt. Reckless, a chestnut mare of
just 13 hands (41⁄2 feet to her
shoulder), was a decorated combat
veteran of the Korean War.
First Lt. Eric Pedersen of the
Fifth Marines bought her for $250
at a Seoul racetrack in October
1952 to carry ammo and other
supplies in hilly, rough terrain.
She saw combat after a month
of intense training, which included
learning to “hit the deck” (get
down) while under attack and to
stay calm amid concussive fire.
Her most valiant performance
came in March 1953 during the
crucial defense of Outpost Vegas.
The fight raging, Reckless
hauled packs of ammo, each
about 200 pounds, up a gruelling
45-degree slope. On the way
back, she carried wounded
soldiers. She made 51 round trips,
mostly on her own, in a field
chaotic with flares and gun smoke.
She caught shrapnel above
an eye and in a foreleg but kept
going, earning two Purple Hearts.
“There had to be an angel
riding that mare,” Sgt. Harold
Wadley, who served with her
that day, told the Lexington, KY,
Herald-Leader in 2017. “She knew
where her gun team was.”
Robin Hutton, author of Sgt.
Reckless: America’s War Horse
(2014), led efforts to honor the
mare with three memorials—one is
at California’s Camp Pendleton,
where Reckless died in 1968. •BY MARY-LIZ SHAWSHE WASN’T A HORSE,
SHE WAS A MARINE