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The Thoroughbred
December 2024
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From the President’s Desk
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Happy Holidays, Dragoons!
I hope that you enjoy this great edition of The Thoroughbred.
I am grateful for Thille Newton’s article on her dad; great backstory to the man who gave us 100 Years with the Second Cavalry. If you haven’t read this classic book on our Regiment, reach out to Thille and purchase a copy. You
cannot be well versed in the history of the Regiment without reading MAJ Lambert’s book.
Bob’s Smith account his time in the Second is an invaluable contribution to our history. Thanks, Bob, for stepping forward with your wonderful account. Many of you have encountered circumstances similar to Bob’s front-row seat for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Tell us about what you’ve been a part of…I appreciate Bob’s comments on COL Baldwin, CSM Foglio, CAPT Hatch and 1SG Story. Tell else who you have served with and encountered in your time in the Regiment…Help us to capture the history of the Regiment through your experiences and interactions. Any story is a thread in our rich tapestry.
We’ll do a thorough review for the New Year. However, you should know that your Association is making progress on many fronts because people are stepping forward. Literally everyday members of your Association are working to fulfill our mission:
To foster the community of our members, maintain a strong link to the Regiment and secure and preserve the history of our Regiment and the Association. Encourage “Dragoon for Life.”
I want to thank everyone that is contributing to those efforts. There’s room for more, so please don’t hesitate to step forward if you want to help, even in small doses.
I am grateful for the “Toujours Pret” embrace that I get every week from members of our group. Critically, I am impressed by the quality of the young people serving in the Regiment today. Our country has entrusted them with our freedom, and they are delivering. We must endeavor to know they support them and welcome them into our merry band of Dragoons for Life whenever
they are ready.
However you celebrate this festive time of the year, please know that your battle buddies in the Association are here for you. May you find joy and satisfaction in this holiday season.
Always Ready, Dragoon for Life
Tim White
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Col. Joseph I. Lambert
Author of
One Hundred Years with the Second Cavalry
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Col. Joseph Idus Lambert was born in 1895 in Hope, Texas. After attending high school in Center Point, Texas, and graduating from El Paso High School in 1914, he attended the University of Texas (Austin) from 1914 to 1916. In the summer of 1916, American troops headed by General John J. Pershing, were searching for Pancho Villa, who had attacked Columbus, New Mexico, and several targets in Texas. Lambert set aside his education at the University of Texas to join the Texas National Guard when the possibility of an invasion of Mexico became apparent. After spending the next few months guarding the border, these National Guard units were demobilized and sent home. Lambert was discharged on August 9, 1917, and, having taken the written examination for an officer’s commission, was promoted on the same day to the rank of second lieutenant in the regular army in the U. S. Cavalry and posted immediately to Fort Leavenworth to attend Officers Training Camp.
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Lambert with the tiger he killed in February of 1925 in French Indo-China (today’s Vietnam).
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Lambert with the tiger he killed in February of 1925 in French Indo-China (today’s Vietnam).
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Lambert became first lieutenant on July 1, 1920, and captain on December 9, 1920. Over the next 15 years, he received assignments all over the world, beginning with service in the Fourth Cavalry in the Brownsville District at Camp McAllen, Texas, with the Mexican Border Patrol. He was pulled from there and assigned to compete as a part of a team of 10 representing the U. S. Cavalry in the National Rifle Match with considerable success. He served as a Philippine Scout of the 26th Cavalry in the Philippine Islands from 1923 to 1925, including leave for big game hunting in French Indochina (now Vietnam). He spent three years with the 11th Cavalry at the Presidio of Monterey, California, followed by ROTC duty at the University of Georgia for several years, where in 1929 he lost the sight in one eye while teaching polo and completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in history. In 1930 he was designated as guide for the Gold Star Mothers visiting cemeteries in Europe.
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Lambert was posted to the Second Cavalry Regiment as commander of the Headquarters Troop at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1934. He previously had served in the Cavalry School at Riley in 1922-23, so he was familiar with the post. The 1930s was a time of transition for the U. S. Cavalry. Its transportation had become motorized, the scout platoons now were armored, but the regiment generally was mounted on horses. There was so much esprit de corps in the cavalry, in particular with the Second Cavalry, that they continued to seek reasons to keep the horses until World War II. The last horse cavalry units were still operating in the Philippines in 1942.
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In 1936, in order to keep that spirit of the regiment vigorous and knowledge of it alive, the regimental commander, Col. Dorsey Rodney, gave Lambert a challenging assignment, to collect the records of important events of the history of the regiment and put them in book form for the regimental centennial in 1936. Fortunately, he had at his disposal the finest cavalry library in the country at Fort Riley. Officers had been required to keep meticulous records of all regimental activities down to the smallest troop patrol. These had been recorded in longhand in the field and later were transcribed by typewriter. With the help of the Fort Riley librarian, Elizabeth Kirwan, whom he later married, Lambert completed the task of selecting and organizing data, photographs, drawings, and the index. The book was published in 1939 with the title One Hundred Years with the Second Cavalry. It was republished in 1999 by his children.
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Also at Fort Riley, Lambert executed the sad task of writing regulations to assist the transition from cavalry to mechanized. The regiment had tried both horse and mechanized with each new task. Each had its advantages, as the horse would become exhausted during the maneuvers before the truck would run out of gas or get stuck. These field manuals were issued as guides in peace and war until 1942. Lambert was promoted to the rank of major on October 1, 1936, during his service at Riley. His service continued through World War II, largely with armored regiments, until his retirement as colonel in 1947.
#1. Cavalry hunt at Fort Riley in 1936 (labeled at the bottom)
#2. Headquarters Company Second Cavalry Fort Riley March 3, 1936. Lambert is in the first row, center person, coming directly down from the guidon.
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My Fellow Dragoons:
As we close out 2024 and look toward 2025, we have much to reflect on and even more to look forward to. This year, our Regiment celebrates an impressive milestone—189 years of history and service. Additionally, our Army marks its 250th anniversary, a momentous occasion for us all.
In the spirit of growth and connection, we are expanding our ties with the active Regiment and strengthening our relationship with the professional associations of our Army. In 2024, we plan to launch a Dragoon-wide virtual chapter of the United States Field Artillery Association, followed by chapters for the Armor and Cavalry Association and the Infantry Association.
Our fundraising efforts continue with initiatives to support the Dragoon Troop, which provides emergency aid to active-duty Troopers in need when no other support options exist. We are also raising funds for the Dragoon Walkway Through History, an important project to preserve and honor our legacy.
Plans are underway for a significant birthday celebration and an extraordinary reunion in Nashville, Tennessee, this April. We encourage all Dragoons to attend, connect, and celebrate together.
As always, I urge you to seize any opportunity to gather with fellow Dragoons. Just last month, Tim and Susan joined Susan and me for a wonderful weekend in New York’s Finger Lakes. Wine was shared, stories were exchanged, and we basked in the enduring friendship unique to cavalrymen.
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The Association needs volunteers to bring our initiatives to life. We are seeking individuals to:
- Assist at the reunion.
- Contribute to our history program.
- Take on leadership roles within this all-volunteer organization.
Additionally, we are looking for liaisons for our squadrons, as well as editors for the Thoroughbred and Dragoon Base. Finally, we welcome content providers, especially those willing to share recollections of their service in the Regiment.
Let me echo the sentiments of our President in wishing you all joyful and meaningful holidays. Here’s to another year of service, friendship, and pride in our shared legacy.
Dragoon for Life!
John MacEnroe
Association Adjutant
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My name is Robert Smith. From April, 1968 until November, 1969 I was the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regimental photographer assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, Merrell Barracks, in Nuremberg. The regiment was responsible then for guarding and patrolling 300 miles of the East German border, and the entire Czechoslovakian border.
I arrived at Merrell Baracks and 2ACR headquarters in mid-April,1968, fresh from infantry AIT at Ft Dix. I stood in a line outside of the headquarters building with others as we were being processed in to the unit. While I was standing there waiting,
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a senior NCO walked out of headquarters and past me. I stopped him and asked if they needed a photographer. He looked at me quizzically. You a photographer? he asked. I was a civilian newspaper photographer, I told him. He took my files that I was carrying and disappeared back into headquarters.
I was drafted and trained as 11C, infantry mortars. As such, standing there in line that day I was probably destined to be sent down to one of the squadrons and assigned to a mortar track. Instead, the NCO came back out of headquarters and took me inside where I stood in front of Lt Hahn. On his desk were Leica, Rolleiflex, and Pentax cameras.
Do you know how to operate these? he asked. I do, I said. Can you load them for me, he asked, handing me film. I loaded each one and snapped pictures of him with each. Can you develop and print that film? he asked. I can. They
showed me to a small darkroom in the HQ building. The darkroom had a sloping tiled floor; it had originally been a surgery suite, as the entire HQ building had been a hospital when Merrell barracks was an SS kaserne during the war.
I developed the film, printed, and that day became the regimental photographer.
Colonel Clark Baldwin was in charge of the regiment then, though I soon learned that CSM Foglio pretty much ran things as far as my enlisted life was
concerned. Captain Willard Hatch was commanding officer of Headquarters Troop. Sergeant Story was HQ troop first sergeant. His nickname was Shaky.
I settled in and slowly began to adapt to regular army life and my new job photographing the unit, getting to know my way around.
One day in early May I went up in a CH-34 to photograph a reenlistment over Amberg, a 3rd squadron soldier who had taken a burst. He posed with Sergeant Darden, one of two regimental reenlistment NCOs at HQ. We
hovered while I took pictures inside the helicopter bay when suddenly the aircraft started to fall out of the sky. We had lost power and auto rotated down to a firm landing; later we ended up returning to Nuremberg via Jeep. I still have a photo of me outside that helicopter after we landed. Dazed and confused.
In early summer the Regimental Organization Day came around, and I took lots of pictures and printed and mounted some of them for Colonel Baldwin to give as gifts. There was a big parade, an Air Force flyover of Phantoms, horses, sabers, marching bands, lots of visiting senior officers and dignitaries. A special army signal corps outfit was there to shoot both still and motion pictures. The lieutenant in charge of that crew later saw my work and tried to get me assigned to his unit, but my MOS then was 11C. Had I the 84Bravo MOS—still photographer—which I eventually was assigned, I would have been able to join their unit. They were stationed in Italy and went TDY all over the world, including short stints in Vietnam, on assignment. These were the guys who shot for the army’s Big Picture television show, among other things. They were good.
During my time with the Regiment my pictures ended up in The Dragoon, the Regimental newsletter; The Jayhawker, the newspaper of VII Corps; Stars and Stripes, and other publications I can’t remember now. Pictures were taken in the field, at Graf, Wildflecken and Hohenfehls, on maneuvers and gunnery training; at each of the 2ACR squadrons and border camps, as well as 2nd squadron of the 14th cavalry regiment that was attached to 2ACR on the East German sector where the border guards goose-stepped like German soldiers in WWII. That gave me chills to see.
But none of the pictures I ever took in my time there would be as exciting—or dangerous—as the aerial photos I took on the Czech and East German borders, especially after August 21,1968 when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia.
We awoke early August 22 to sirens going off, but this wasn’t just another alert. Guys were running around in their underwear in the barracks with M14s they’d just drawn from the armor down the hall. It was complete chaos. I got dressed, drew my rifle, then went to HQ and sat in my darkroom and waited. What for, I didn’t know. Finally someone pounded on the darkroom door and told me to grab my gun and cameras and be at the helipad in five minutes to board a
Huey.
I went up that day with Major Sullivan, who was the S2, and his driver, Don Buffington, who I eventually got to know well; he now lives in Atlanta. We flew up to somewhere on the Czech border and banked left, always keeping the border on our right per protocol. No turns were ever allowed. It was a beautiful clear August day, warm, sunny, some clouds. Finally after a while I could see military vehicles scuttling around on the Czech side and I began shooting pictures, with Major Sullivan pointing out what to photograph. We flew back to HQ where I quickly developed the film and gave still-wet prints to the S2 group upstairs. People were rushing around everywhere. Command of the regiment was in transition then, with Colonel Baldwin outgoing, and Colonel Walter G. Allen incoming. For those first couple weeks both were in place, running the show.
The next two weeks I went up every day but one. Now the Hueys were armed with coaxial machine guns, rockets, and an M60 on a bungie cord in the door where I sat. On each subsequent flight my anxiety level increased. One day as we were flying I overheard one of the pilots saying his tour in Vietnam was no where near scary as this. We flew past Russian soldiers at the fence line; fat ungainly looking armed Russian Hound helicopters shadowed us from their side of the border. I got a great picture of one parked on the ground near Cheb, I remember. About a week after the invasion, I was on one of several Hueys that flew to the border, two gunships and one command ship. Colonel Gordy Allen had just transitioned in as regimental commander, and CSM Foglio was with him in the command ship. We landed somewhere along the border west of Pilsen near a remote official crossing area. As we were setting down I noticed a small circle of people. We landed, I took off my flight helmet, grabbed a couple cameras and walked over to see what was going on. In the middle of this circle was Shirley Temple Black, who had been in Prague when it was
invaded. Although she subsequently became the ambassador to Prague eleven years later; she was there for an international Multiple Sclerosis conference with an organization she co-founded. It took her and other US citizens a while to get out of there in a convoy via the US embassy. She was wearing a purple miniskirt, and yellow plastic go-go boots. She was very short, and although she was only 40, I remember thinking at the time that she was old. I took a bunch of pictures of her, and at one point she approached me and asked me questions, where was I from, how long had I been there. Chatting me up. She also autographed my fatigue cap.
When we got back to HQ, I got busy printing the pictures of her when I was suddenly summoned to CSM Foglio’s office. If you knew him, no explanation is necessary; if you didn’t, he put the fear of God in every enlisted man and most junior officers. What did he want? He had served in WW ll under Patton and kept a picture of him on his wall below a cavalry saber. He was in the Korean War, and he had been with the Big Red One in Vietnam before coming to
2ACR. Rumor was that he could have been CSM of the Army, but turned it down.
It turned out that CSM Foglio was a huge fan of Shirley Temple. He wanted a print of every picture I took of her, and he wanted all the negatives as well because no one was to know that she had gotten out, how she got out, and where she got out. Classified. I did as he asked, making crisp 8x10s for him. From that point on he looked out for me. I never told him I kept one 5×7 for myself that I sent home. I don’t know what happened to it or the picture of a dead Czech soldier who was shot escaping and died on our side. I didn’t take those photos; they came from one of our OPs and I developed the film and printed them. Some OPs had Pentax camera gear as well, and sometimes film often came back to me to develop and print.
Days later, two officers showed up at HQ with new photographic gear for me to use. They came from West Berlin with classified photo equipment. The camera was a Bessler Topcon Super D 35mm—Japanese made—with factory motor drive, and factory bulk film back that could hold up to 200 feet of film. It was fitted with a 500mm 5.6 Russian mirror lens. The classified part was
the auto gyro that attached to the lens, new technology at the time, that stabilized the camera so that slow 35mm ASA film could be used at unconventionally low shutter speeds —the idea being that you could blow these pictures way up to study without too much film grain and still have them be sharp. The rig was long and heavy and was mounted on a wooden rifle stock with a pistol grip that allowed me to fire it like a gun. The gyro ran off Huey power, or—if dismounted—it ran off a battery vest that I wore which looked kind of like a flak jacket. This contraption was mounted in the door of the Huey on a bungie cord like an M60, which was often next to it. I wish I had pictures of this rig, but it was classified. I’ve since learned that the Navy
also used the Bessler cameras for aerial work too, because they were so well built. I remember asking the officer briefing me why use a Japanese camera with a Russian lens, and he said something to the effect about nobody could say I was spying if we were shot down. Didn’t make sense then; doesn’t now.
A few times I went up with this rig with two senior NCOs who were from “somewhere else.” They had some laptop-type electronic listening gear, and wore headphones. We would fly up near Coburg and they would tweak knobs on their machine and then point out the door and say “shoot in that direction.” I think they were trying to pinpoint Russian radar sites. I didn’t have a need to know. For those missions I shot infrared film, the only time I did so.
The most vivid memory of all those aerial missions was flying the border along a hilly rocky area and coming over a squad of Russian soldiers who seemed to be right under us, so close that I could see the face a young soldier probably my age hoist his rifle in my direction, as frightened as I was. I screamed in my mic that they were crossing the fence and we had to turn around so I could get a good shot, but there were no turns allowed on the border. You flew along it until you broke off.
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Another time I was kept back at HQ to develop film that came in from one of the OPs, so Lt Hahn took the camera and went up in a Huey and came back later that day shouting he’d gotten the money shot (words to that effect) of a Russian vehicle on our side of the border. He had everyone from Colonel Allen and some visiting VII Corps brass riveted with his description of what he saw, lots of people running around. Downstairs I developed the film and printed the frames he specified.
Again I sent wet prints up to S2. Later that night I ran into one of the sergeants from that section and asked him what they had found. “He got nice pictures of a tree stump, Smitty,” he said. A month later Lt Hahn got orders for Vietnam.
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A few weeks after I’d been using the gyro camera I was pulled aside and told
that General Westmoreland—then army Chief of Staff—was going to visit HQ and I was to present the rig and explain its function as part of our surveillance
mission. Show and Tell. I was petrified at the prospect of standing in front of him.
Fortunately for me, the visit was canceled because it was felt if word got out that he was there it would exacerbate tensions with the Soviets.
Things eased up at the border in late fall. Senator Henry Jackson visited in
November and was given a border tour.
Later, a major from SHAPE headquarters in Belgium arrived to take me with him in a Huey to photograph the bridge through the Fulda Gap, pictures
to be used for an upcoming briefing for newly elected president Nixon who would be visiting NATO headquarters in January after his inauguration, the only time I ever took military color slides. We landed and went underneath the
bridge so I could shoot pictures of the special small compartments designed to hold “backpack” nuclear devices that Green Berets from Bad Tolz would install to blow the bridge and fill in that big ravine there. They trained to parachute in with them. It’s all declassified now, but it was top secret then. ADM teams– Atomic Demolition Munitions.
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There were so many interesting photo assignments. Like the time I flew in the rear section of a huge Flying Crane as it transported an M113 personnel carrier; skimming tree tops in the two-man bubble H-13 over Wildflecken; doing barrel rolls in the back seat of a Birddog spotter plane with a pilot who loved to fly; going out with the Air Force forward air control team assigned to the Regiment to photograph practice air strikes from Luftwaffe F-104s and Air Force Phantoms that came in so low the air rippled and moisture fell, something the pilots called “making water.”
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Riding in the bustle rack of an M60 tank at Graf while it plowed down range firing all machine guns, or standing behind it as it fired the main gun– Loud. Going on patrols with the Bundesgrenzschutz, who were issued beer in their mess hall, making breakfast fun. War games at Hohenfels with simulated ADM nuclear explosions, a key part of NATO’s defense strategy in the event of a Soviet blitzkreig, then and now.
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I remember the first time I ever saw the border, not long after I arrived in country. We flew along past a tall tower with a lone Czech guard standing outside. It was springtime, crops were planted, everything was flowering and greening below except that mined strip: a long snaking scar that ran through fields, forests, streams, centuries old tiny villages, hearts, minds, and
dreams. I sat in the door of that Huey and impulsively waved at that Czech soldier. He stood there, with his AK-47 slung over his shoulder waving back at me, smiling. Two soldiers. Different sides. At peace.
I was privileged to have been a part of 2ACR at that time, a witness to and chronicler of history. I was fortunate to have served under distinguished leaders: CSM Joseph Foglio, Colonel Gordy Allen–who always called me Smitty, Captain Don Holder, who became my S1 section chief and then went on to command the Regiment in Desert Storm and later becoming commandant of the army’s Command and General Staff College. My last CO of Headquarters Troop was Captain Larry Taylor, who was awarded the Medal of Honor last year (2023) for flying his Cobra in and rescuing four LLRPs in Vietnam. A genuine hero. These were fine soldiers, leading the best unit
in the Army during a difficult and dangerous time, dedicated, and deserving to be remembered.
Toujours Pret
Robert Smith
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Lt Col Joshua Kevin Frye
Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Kevin Frye passed away at Walter Reed Military Medical Center on November 27, 2024. He was 39 years old. Joshua was born in Charlottesville, Virginia on June 6, 1985. The first-born child of Maike and Scott Frye and the first grandchild of Lena and Clarence Frye. Joshua brought great joy to his family. He grew up in Virginia and Germany and was bilingual, fitting easily into both cultures. On Kwajalein Atoll, as a military dependent, he learned to dive and became a lifelong scuba enthusiast. In Berlin, Germany, Joshua graduated from the prestigious John F. Kennedy Schule, receiving the principal’s “Leadership Award” for outstanding service to the school community as head of the stage crew. After high school graduation, Joshua was conscripted into the German Armed Forces and served for nine months that included a security detail on Ramstein Airbase.
Joshua graduated from East Tennessee State University and was an honors ROTC cadet.
He was commissioned as a Military Police Officer and served with distinction at Guantanamo Bay as well as in Germany and Afghanistan. Joshua left active duty to pursue a master’s degree in Journalism at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
While a student, Joshua married Regina Scharnagl and served briefly as a public affairs officer with the US Forest Service, Land-Between-The-Lakes. Joshua returned to active duty and served in various locations as an MP officer, including Nashville, Wheaton College and Tallahassee. In his final assignment, Joshua served as the Public Affairs Officer for the US Army Military Intelligence Readiness Command. It was in this position that he was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive form of Leukemia and succumbed to the disease shortly thereafter.
Joshua was an amazing father and husband and a great friend to so many. He enjoyed life to the fullest and had many dreams for the future. Joshua touched so many lives in so many ways and in so many places and can never be replaced. He will always remain in our hearts and prayers.
Survivors include his children: James Markus (10) and Timothy David (8); his wife, Regina; his father, Scott; his brother, David; his great aunt, Peggy; his aunts, Tara and Lis; his uncles, Mark, Stuart and Hans-Juergen; as well as numerous cousins, nieces and nephews.
A memorial service was held in the Weaver Funeral Home Chapel on Wednesday, December 4, 2024 at 11:00 am. Immediately following the service, military honors were rendered at the gravesite in High Point Cemetery, Bristol, Virginia.
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