Thoughts from the Chairman
Fellow Dragoons,
I wish you all well on this day, the 183rd birthday of our regiment. We can all be very proud that we each share a part of our storied history with our service in our great regiment. I feel an even greater affection to the words “Dragoon for Life” on this day and hope you each feel the same.
A few brief comments from your Chairman:
Our Association is alive and well and doing great under Bryan’s leadership and the support of his team. They always excel, as all Cavalryman do, despite the many challenges they face as a volunteer organization. I want to express my gratitude and thanks to Bryan and his team with this correspondence. Without them, we would be in deep trouble
Our recently concluded 2019 reunion in Kansas City was a winner by every imaginable measure. One of our best ever for sure! Thanks to Tim and Frank and all who helped him to make it so special.
Please remember all who have served honorably in the Regiment are members of our Association. It costs no one a dime to become an Association member. We are already members because we have paid our dues with our service as Dragoons! This is an important message that needs to be shared with everyone who has served our Regiment honorably, so that more among our number will join us in supporting our Regiment and enjoying each other whenever the opportunity arises. We need your help to spread the word. Tell all to go to our web site and sign up! Easy and needs to be done as we strive to perpetuate the history and lineage of the regiment.
Our memorial project is well underway and needs to be supported financially by all of us, not just a select few. Bryan’s message tell’s it all. We make it happen or it doesn’t succeed which is NOT an option! Give now, and do so now at whatever level is comfortable for you. This project honors all our fallen and tells all who will enjoy viewing our memorial, in decades to come, that the 2nd Cavalry Association represents and deeply cares for Dragoons past, present and future.
Finally, we need fresh, new talent to join our leadership team to maintain and grow our Association. Our future resides in the capable hands of young Dragoons, as we who have served for awhile start to tire and grow older. The point is this is important stuff! It requires dedicated, smart and next in line Dragoons who are willing to step up to help as their time comes and ours fades into the past. If we fail at in this task the future of our Association will be difficult to maintain at the high level of success we enjoy today. Please take this “call for involvement” seriously! Encourage our fellow Dragoons to call one of us, email one of us, or contact one of us through the web page and let us know if you need help enrolling.
My very best wishes to you all. I hope to see you all in Atlanta and Fort Benning in 2021 where we will dedicate our memorial and enjoy the celebration of Dragoon fellowship together one more time. As General John Tilelli often says to me, “It just don’t get any better than this!”
Toujour Pret!
Bill
“Dragoon for Life”
Thoughts from the President
Greetings Dragoons, and Happy Birthday to the oldest continuously serving Regiment in our Army!
I am still smiling thinking back on our reunion in Kansas City last month. A wonderful event shared with great and truly amazing people! I am proud to know you and have served, and of late, drank, alongside you! Really proud of the Dragoons that attended the association’s reunion for the first time….. I hope to see you all in Atlanta in 2021. Now, please reach out to those you served with and invite them along, there is always room at the table for another trooper.
I am also pleased to note we did manage to make a few dollars for the Regimental Memorial at the reunion. While every squadron chipped in, I think Cougar Squadron and the War Eagles take top billing. Well Done!! That said we are not there yet. If you have contributed to the memorial, thank you. Now, please reach out to your friends and ask them to contribute. If you haven’t contributed, what are you waiting for? A monthly contribution through PayPal is easy to set up, and helps you manage your donation over time. Just $100, $75, $50, or $25 dollars a month for two years, goes a long way in getting this done.
As of today, we have a Facebook page dedicated to collecting money for the memorial, and highlighting those Dragoons that will be honored. And if you are not on Facebook then you can always donate through the 2d Cavalry Association web page.
As I have said, this memorial won’t be built by the privileged few, it will be built by the many hardworking men and women that have served our Regiment so faithfully since 1836.
As we close out this Memorial weekend, I hope everyone took a moment to remember those Troopers that have gone before us. They are now, just as they were when in the Regiment, very much a part of our team and our legacy. It is our duty, and privilege to remember them. Remember your Regiment.
Always Ready
Dragoon For Life
Bryan
Bryan E. Denny
2d Cavalry Association
President
2019 2d Cavalry Association Reunion
The Second Cavalry Association 2019 Reunion was held in Kansas City Missouri and was a rousing success. We were supported by a color guard from the Fourth Cavalry, and honored to host several members of our Regiment who traveled from Vilseck. In attendance was the RDCO, RCSM and the Regimental NCO and Trooper of the year.
The staff rides engineered by Frank Hurd and Tim White were exceptional. On Friday, we were treated to a discussion of the 2nd largest cavalry battle of the Civil War at Mine Creek (25 October 1864) and a tour of Fort Scott, Kansas the last remaining outpost of a line of forts from Minnesota to Louisiana that helped to enforce this promise of a “permanent Indian frontier.” On Saturday we had a very educational visited to the Presidential Library of Harry S Truman, and the very sobering and thoughtful National World War I Memorial and Museum.
The Punch Bowl Ceremony once again highlighted the rich history of the Regiment and at dinner we got a superb presentation by Pat Biddy concerning the repatriation of PFC Fred Ashley’s remains, who served the regiment during the Second World War, and the ongoing efforts to recover two more World War II MIAs. We were also briefed on the state of the Regiment by the RDCO, LTC Troy Meissel, who described a very active calendar for our Regiment, both tactically and as a political force in Europe.
Following the retirement of the colors, we were once again entertained by Frank Hurd’s not so silent auction with all of the proceeds going towards our memorial effort at Ft Benning. We missed those who couldn’t make the reunion and thoroughly enjoyed catching up with those who did.
Future reunions – the 2021 reunion will be at Ft. Benning where we will dedicate an lasting and encompassing memorial to the history of the Regiment and to those who served and died as Cavalry Troopers.
2023 is tentatively set to be in Montana to trace the 2d Cavalry in the Second Indian Wars.
Message from the Editor:
My fellow Dragoons! I am writing this on the 183d anniversary of the founding of our Regiment, the oldest regiment serving continuously as a regiment in our Army.
As you all know that the Association is building a memorial, at the Maneuver Center of Excellence on Fort Benning, to be unveiled at our 2021 reunion. Our design will recognize all Troopers who have given the last full measure of devotion in the service of our Regiment from 1836 to the present.
Our fallen Troopers number about sixteen-hundred; commemorating them is important and it is expensive, it is also our duty.
Frank called me a few months ago, and asked me for what I was comfortable with donating, then he pushed me to make a monthly commitment of more (Second Squadron guys have to provide mutual support!)… see the big stick!
The bottom line is that the monthly commitment, through PayPal is easy, and painless. Please consider making a financial commitment to Remember your Regiment.
This project is a major undertaking, indeed, it is the Association’s biggest project to date; you should already be proud of its audacity! We can not expect some corporation to drop a big donation, this is on us, as it should be; the names on those walls are our brethren. Please know that no amount is too small or too large. To donate, please go to our website, https://www.2dcavalryassociation.com.
Dragoon for Life!
John
John MacEnroe
Editor
Fiddlers Green
SSG Wayne E. Dixon
December 17 2018
Wayne Eugene Dixon Wayne Eugene Dixon, 86, of Burleson, TX passed away Monday December 17, 2018. Graveside services with Military Honors was held at 11:15 AM Thursday, December 27, at the Dallas – Fort Worth National Cemetery, Dallas, Texas. Mr. Dixon is survived by his wife Viola Louise Dixon; daughter, Jeanette Normand and her husband Joe; Grandchildren, Darin Wayne Dixon, and Shawn Clifton Duckworth; great-granddaughter, Zadie Lynn Viola Dixon.
Howard R. Anderson III journeyed to Fiddler’s Green peacefully to join his brethren on Friday, 10 May 2019 after battling a long illness at the age of 51.
Howard was born on January 9, 1968 in Belleville Illinois. He served as a Cavalry Scout in the United States Army’s 2d Cavalry Regiment from 1985 to 1993, spending 18 months in Germany. Following his Army service, Howard met and married his wife, Linda, in Knob Noster, Missouri on October 26, 1993. Howard also attended State fair community college and the University of Central Missouri, majoring in music education. Howard was a jack of all trades, as he did cross-country truck driving, restaurant management, trophy and T-shirt design, security, and coaching Little League baseball, but is true loves in life for his family, music, and riding his motorcycle.
A celebration of Howard’s life was held at the Charity Christian Revival Center on May 18, 2019.
Col. Scott C. Marcy
April 28, 1950 – May 21, 2019
Colonel (R) Scott Colson Marcy, of Conneaut, Ohio and Eagle River, Alaska, passed away May 21, 2019.
Visitation will be 17:00 – 19:30, Friday, June 7, 2019, at the Marcy Funeral Home, 208 Liberty St., Conneaut. Graveside service will be 10:00 in Glenwood Cemetery, Rt. 20, with full military honors conducted by the American Legion Cowle Post 151.
A celebration of Life will follow at 11:30 at the D-Day Sanctuary, (former New Leaf United Methodist Church) 283 Buffalo St., Conneaut. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to environmental organizations, NRDC, www.ndrc.org or to EDF, www.edf.org or to other environmental organizations of your choice. Full obituary information will be announced at a later date.
Please send Fiddler Green Spot Reports to editor.2dcavalry@gmail.com
US cavalry unit commemorates Gen. Patton’s order to save hundreds of Lipizzaner Stallions from being eaten by Soviets
By MARTIN EGNASH | STARS AND STRIPES Published: May 2, 2019
Soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment took part in a Czech ceremony this week commemorating Operation Cowboy, a mission Gen. George Patton entrusted to the same unit in the closing days of World War II.
The cavalry unit’s orders were simple: the general, a famous horse enthusiast, directed the soldiers to save a group of purebred horses from slaughter.
The soldiers were successful, saving the horses — the Lipizzaner Stallions, one of Europe’s oldest breeds — and freeing over 150 allied prisoners while liberating the Czech towns of Bela and Hostoun. The two towns have put on a celebration to honor the American troops for more than 10 years, after dedicating a memorial for two U.S. soldiers who died in the fighting.
“The entire experience was absolutely humbling,” said Capt. Dallas Wiggins, a troop commander with the regiment who took part in the events this week marking the 74th anniversary of the operation. “To fall into this [unit’s] legacy and represent those few that changed the culture of these towns is truly remarkable.”
Wiggins spoke at ceremonies in the town squares of both Hostoun and Bela, where soldiers from the regiment marched in a color guard and presented wreaths. Troops also showed off the regiment’s Stryker armored vehicles to local children.
Civilians dressed in WWII-period uniforms also took part in the events, and Libor Picka, Bela’s mayor, wore the cavalry’s signature Stetson while speaking at the site of the stone memorial honoring Pfc. Raymond E. Manz and Technician 5th Grade Owen W. Sutton, the two members of Alpha Troop, 42nd Cavalry Squadron, who were killed during Operation Cowboy.
After the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948, the American operation that liberated the horses and the towns eventually faded from memory until recent decades.
The mission had sprung from concerns that the Lipizzaner lineage would be lost. The Third Reich had seized nearly all the horses of the breed, several hundred, from the Spanish Riding School in Vienna and brought them to a stud farm outside Hostoun as part of a livestock breeding program.
But in April 1945, the farm was directly in the path of the advancing Red Army, which was on a collision course with remaining brigades of the SS, an elite and fanatical Nazi unit. A German prisoner of war told 2nd Cavalry’s Col. Charles Reed about the horses, who some caretakers were worried the hungry and tired Soviet troops might kill for food.
Reed telegraphed his boss, Patton, who had competed in an equestrian event in the 1912 Olympics, asking permission to save the stallions. Patton ordered them to do it quickly.
The capture of Hostoun on April 28, 1945, “resembled a fiesta,” Reed wrote in his report on the operation, listing 300 Lipizzaner horses rescued along with more than 100 of the best Arabian horses in Europe, about 200 thoroughbred racehorses and 600 Cossack breeding horses.
Still, there weren’t enough U.S. troops to ride and drive the horses some 25 miles back to U.S. lines. Then a group of White Russian Cossacks fleeing with their horses from the Soviets offered to help. They left their horses behind, which did end up as food for the Red Army.
The Lipizzaners were returned to Vienna and many of the other rescued horses were sent to Fort Riley, Kan.
“We had seen so many horrors in the previous months that we had to do something wonderful,” Reed would say of the decision to undertake the rescue.
Horses hold a special place of significance for the regiment, which began as a horseback-riding dragoon unit in the early 19th century, Wiggins said. The regiment’s soldiers are still called dragoons today.
“For the Dragoons, 2CAV, we are mounted infantrymen. If it was [on] a horse, an armored car or a Stryker, we will close with and destroy the enemy,” Wiggins said. “Ultimately, horse riding is our cavalry heritage. It’s a (cavalry) thing.”
egnash.martin@stripes.com
Twitter: @Marty_Stripes
Medal of Honor citation
Rank and organization: Captain, 2nd U.S. Cavalry.
Place and date: Near O’Fallons, Mont., April 1, 1880.
Entered service at: Minnesota. Birth: Schuyler County, Ill. Date of issue: November 27, 1894.
Surprised the Indians in their strong position and fought them until dark with great boldness.
Eli Lundy Huggins (August 1, 1842 – October 22, 1929) was a US Army officer who received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Indian Wars. He was born in Schuyler County, Illinois, and died in San Diego.
After briefly attending Hamline University, Huggins dropped out and enlisted as a private in the 2nd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry in July 1861. He was promoted to corporal in 1862, and was captured at the Battle of Chickamauga, but released the following year. In March 1865, he was commissioned first lieutenant in the 1st Minnesota Heavy Artillery Regiment, before mustering out the following September.
Thanks to a recommendation by congressman William Windom, Huggins was commissioned as a second lieutenant of the 2nd Artillery Regiment in February 1866, and regained his wartime rank by the end of the year. While in the army, he attended Mankato Normal School now called Minnesota State University, Mankato from 1872 to 1875. He was then promoted to captain of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in April 1879. In October 1882 he was assigned as Assistant Inspector General in the Department of the Columbia. He was promoted to major in January 1897, and served as aide-de-camp to general Nelson A. Miles until Miles’ appointment as Commanding General of the Army.
At the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Huggins was appointed colonel of the 8th US Volunteer Infantry in May 1898. After the war he reverted to his pre-war rank and served with the 6th US Cavalry in the Boxer Rebellion. He was again promoted to colonel in November 1901 and received command of his old regiment, the 2nd Cavalry. He was finally promoted to Brigadier General on February 22, 1903, and retired the next day.
Following his retirement, Huggins became a real-estate investor in the Indian Territory. He was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.
2d Cav Store Featured Item
2d Cav Belt Buckle
The 2d Cavalry belt buckle is 2 1/2″ x 3 1/4″ with an oval antique gold finished. The buckles will fit most standard belts up to 1-1/2″ wide.
This collectible belt buckle is a one of a kind treasure. It has a unique design with the history of the Regiment in raised lettering on the inside of the buckle as well as the motto: “ALWAYS READY” AND “TOUJOURS PRET”
$44.00
Quick Notes
Community Day
Run to Honor (10 mile, 10K and 5K options)
Ceremony at the memorial
2CR’s birthday celebration Pancake breakfast to raise funds for the ball Team Day (initiative to provide the soldiers with information about clubs and organizations in the community).
War Eagles will deploy to Hungary and Romania at the end of May through mid-June for Saber Guardian.
Cougar Squadron will deploy to Georgia from end of July to mid-August for Agile Spirit.
Sept 2019 – Lunnevile, France
The 2019 Regimental Ball will be 13 December but a final location is not confirmed.
Spring 2021 – Memorial Dedication/Reunion – Atlanta, GA