#NotWhatYouThink #NWYT #shorts Music: Routine - Anthony Earls Footage: US Department of Defense Note: "The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement."
If the AF horses were enjoying life while the Army horses were headed to the glue factory, that would be about accurate to their primate counterparts in those branches.
Horses are high maintenance. It's worse than a boat. I spend more on dental bills for my horses than my family. They say the two happiest days of a horse owner’s life is the day they buy their first horse and the day they sell their last horse to Purina.
The moment something kicks off in the Indo-Pacific region, the Marines will have horses again. The terrain there is too rough for many vehicles. They just currently don’t have the need for horses.
The german Bundeswehr got the "Tragtierkompanie" with mules and donkeys for transport in alpine regions. They are stationed only half an hour away from me. At times I can see the mobile stables transported on the Autobahn. Also they do some nativity play in their stables every few years, bc why not 😂
The Air Force is not the only branch of military to have horses. I met my wife at Fort Sam, and her job in the army was a veterinary technician. She took care of the armies horses.
The first green berets in Afghanistan rode over the border on horses! Technically they aren't maintained for anything but ceremony, as stated in the video, but they are utilized in-theater when necessary.
cost of maintenance, specialized healthcare, cost of training so most armies will have one cavalry company to store and retain cavalry specific skills and knowledge for (hopefully never) mobilization which will have a sizeable teaching period for wartime numbers of recruits.
It probably has more to with local environmental considerations and locals concerns. Most security forces use quads to patrol remote, undeveloped areas of their installations. The California coastal areas has lots of regulations regarding quad use in undeveloped areas.
I live near Vandenberg and it’s easier for them to have horses because everything is close together so it’s just cheaper and more efficient. If they wanted they could use quads but I am assuming it’s just easier with horses.
Air forces stand more in the tradition of fleets/navies. Oc among their first tasks was reconnaissance (or rather battlefield observation) it's not their culture's origin.
Most people don't remember that the US Air Force had Security Police that rode horses to keep the perimeter secure in the highlands around Clark Air Force in the Phillipines before it was shut down after Mt Pinatubo erupted. They had them for decades. Now that we're expected to have a presence back in the PI, we'll probably do it again.
A donkey walks up to a saloon and stops at the gate, seeing a sign nailed to the door. The sign reads: "no equines allowed". The Donkey hails a passer-by and asks why? "Too much horsin' around, I suppose!"
Imagine how cool it must feel to be a trained, armed combatant riding a horse through the mostly untouched areas of what used to be the great frontier.
This is mostly true. I was stationed at Vandenburg in the 30 SFS. We used them because the base is 98,000 acres and we had our own Fish and Game department because there was also hunting and fishing on base. Yes, they can be used for mission support but they were mostly for the fish cops.
These guys are very similar to another group that was in the Middle East during gwot. Afghan police and security forces worked with American riders who signed up to join and work on horseback. My dad was in Kuwait in 2015 for 9 months in Air Force sf and he tells me all the time about how awesome they are. He’s also a mounted cop so he was super stoked to learn about them
This reminds me of a fellow Security Forces guy I knew long ago. He was tall, good looking, & smart. So naturally every time he mentioned that he was in the Air Force someone would just assume & ask what he piloted. He got tired of explaining that he was a ground pounding Defender. So he just started telling people he piloted the M16. The amount of people I saw just agree or accept that still astounds me.
You go to the Netherlands and some of the villages around the area deliver milk in a horse and buggy, some places to mail to, it was so nice over there I did not want to leave😢
When Clark Air Base in the Philippines was still under US control in the late 1960s, the US Air Force's Air Police had a Mounted Patrol in and around the Crow Valley air gunnery range to watch for Filipino scavengers trying to retrieve scrap metal from the expended bombs and bullets. My dad was a veterinarian at the base stables and riding school and would often join the mounted policemen on their rounds and patrols.
So, I live not far from the areas mentioned. I can say, from personal experience, these places are rugged and remote. Vandenberg encompasses a huge amount of mountains along California's central coast. The Inyo National Forest is, likewise, a remote wilderness without roads, paved or otherwise.
Big shout out from fellow horsemen Detasmen Kavalri Berkuda (Horse Cavalry Detachment), Korps Kavalri, (Cavalry Corps) TNI AD (Indonesian Land Forces), 155 cavalrymen (often also used in civilian & military search, rescue and recovery).
Unrelated but in the early days of the Royal Air Force it was considered proper that pilots also have good horsemanship. That came from the Air Force kinda being a successor to cavalry, with many cavalry men becoming pilots themselves.
Dyess AFB (Texas) has horses as well. They were'nt for patrol though, I can confirm that since I was on patrol in a 6 pax or HMMV. That and who'd want to be on a horse in TX, it's hotttttt here. They had specialized vet services there and also allowed families to keep horses. But prompted me to ask what the heck were they for, for which I was told you don't need to know that. It is a nuke base, so who knows..
Actually, the Army does keep horses around for more than ceremonies. In the event of a worst case scenario where all other methods of communication are knocked out (such as with an EMP), the Army could still use horses to convey messages.
