Is 'Cavalry Bull' Morale Patch 'More Hat, Less Cattle'?

While waxing historical earlier this week regarding the 113th Cavalry Regiment, I came across this photo of a decidedly unauthorized variant of the distinctive 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division patch. I am sworn to secrecy as to which trooper first flashed me this design, and to whether that encounter occurred in Iowa or Afghanistan.

With its horns hidden behind a U.S. Army cavalry Stetson, you might say that this "Cav Bull" version is "more hat, less cattle."

The Iowa Army National Guard's 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment (1-113th Cav.) is headquartered in Souix City, Iowa, and maintains the historical lineage of the whole regiment. The 1-113th Cav. is now part of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT).

I worked up a PowerPoint-style slide using the "morale" patch, the term for any unauthorized patch that is manufactured for humorous purposes. In some U.S. Air Force units, morale patches are worn openly on designated days.

In my experience with Iowa's "Red Bull" units, funny patches are more likely worn concealed on the interior of a pocket flap. Other patches I've seen include:

• "Infidel"
• "Secret Squirrel"
• "My fun meter is pegged"

Want to see more morale patches? Mil-spec Monkey offers selection for sale here. Tactical Tailor offers a selection for sale here.

When I used "Red Horse Cav" as the caption on this slide, people thought it was a horse. The 113th Cav. callsign is traditionally "Red Horse," but I opted to caption the slide with "Red Bull Cav." There are other cavalry units in the greater 34th Inf. Div., after all—perhaps they, too, can put it to use.

The phrase "If you ain't Cav ... you ain't s---" is often heard throughout the U.S. Army. Sometimes, particularly in tavern settings, it's even heard as a call and response.

But almost never in polite company.

Iowa Cavalry Frees WWII Paris, Moves Out Like Ninjas

According to the "Today in National Guard History" website [link now broken], August 25 is the anniversary of U.S. citizen-soldiers arriving in 1944 to liberate Paris. Notably, that includes troopers of the 113th Cavalry Regiment (113th Cav.), whose historical lineage is maintained in modern time by the Iowa National Guard's 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment (1-113th Cav.).

The 1-113th Cav. is headquartered in Sioux City, Iowa, and is part of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT). (Coincidentally, August 25 is also the 1917 birthday of the "Red Bull" division.)

The regiment's World War I nickname of "Red Horse" pre-dates the division's World War II "Red Bull" moniker. Deployed to Eastern Afghanistan's Parwan Province in 2010-2011, the 1-113th Cav. operated as "Task Force Redhorse."

In World War II, the division had been the first to arrive in the European theater, but saw action in North Africa and Italy. The 113th Cav. took a different route in the war, however, finding itself assigned and reorganized to the XIX Corps in Europe. The 113th Cav. started the war as a combination horse and mechanized units, then converted entirely to the use of armored vehicles.

Cavalry soldiers enjoy a reputation for hard- and fast-charging action, whether on the battlefield or at the local bar. They also cultivate a constantly moving culture of irreverent humor, out-of-the-box thinking, and a "now you see us, now you don't" approach to their fighting and free-time.

Cavalry soldiers, in other words, are ninjas with cowboy hats.

To this day, cavalry soldiers celebrate their historical connections to their horse-mounted ancestors by wearing Stetson hats. There is even a tradition of awarding gold or silver spurs to soldiers, after they successfully complete a series of physical challenges called a "spur ride." The phrase "If you ain't Cav ... you ain't s---" is a cavalry motto throughout the Army.

Cavalry soldiers like to brag, but they can often back it up. Often loudly.

On the Iowa National Guard website, Army Chief Warrant Officer David L. Snook writes this about the 113th Cav. mission in World War II:

Throughout the month of August, Allied forces drove rapidly northeastward from Normandy toward Paris. During the advance, the 113th Cavalry had a dual mission – screening for the 30th Infantry Division and maintaining contact with VII Corps on the Division’s right and the 2nd Armored Division on the left. Division orders to the 113th read like something from the old horse cavalry days: "Fan out ahead of the advance in a fast bold run, keeping well ahead of our skirmish lines." [Emphasis added]

The Iowa unit's "first in Paris" claim is shared with members of a New Jersey National Guard unit, according to the National Guard's online historical calendar:

"Dammit colonel, I'm looking up at Notre Dame!" became the battle cry of an on-going feud between two former Guard units as each claim the bragging rights as to which American unit was the first to actually enter the city of Paris just as the Germans abandoned it. The statement was made by Captain William Buenzle, a New Jersey Guardsman, commanding Troop A, 38th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron to his commander, Colonel Cyrus Dolph III, commander of New Jersey's 102nd Cavalry Group, the famous "Essex Troop" to which the 38th was assigned.

The 38th was organized in 1942 from former Guardsmen of Iowa's 113th Cavalry Regiment. After the 38th was assigned to the 102nd in England it gained some New Jersey Guardsmen (including Buenzle) too. The other half of the 102nd Groups' compliment was it's own 102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, also from New Jersey. [Emphasis added]

Ever since landing on Omaha Beach on June 8th (D+2 after "D-Day") the Group had been an important part of the scouting 'eyes' of the Allied advance through Normandy. On this date each squadron was scouting ahead for major components of the Allied armies. The 38th was patrolling for the 4th U.S. Infantry Division and the 102nd scouting for the French 2nd Armored Division. Both entered Paris at about the same time by two different routes. While Buenzle's statement gives strength to the 38th's claim, and the veterans of each claim to this day that their squadron was the "first," its safe to say that Guardsmen were indeed the "first in Paris."

A detail of note, however, is contained in a caption that accompanies the historical photo at the top of this blog post:

An M-8 "Greyhound" armored scout car of Troop B, 102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron marches in the "Liberation Day" parade in Paris held on August 29th. Troop A of the 102nd, along with Troop A, 38th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron each claimed to be the "first in Paris" on this date. While the 102nd marched in the parade, the 38th missed it as it was dispatched north of the city in the continuing pursue of the Germans. [Empahsis added]

The Iowa cavalry troopers, in other words, had already moved on.

Is Abrams Doctrine 'Total Force' ... or 'Total Farce'?

Today is the official birthday of the U.S. military's "Total Force" approach to organizing its people and equipment. The concept calls for integrating active-duty and reserve forces into a cohesive, professional, and all-volunteer military.

It is also a central theme to my larger writing and "Red Bull" research, which tells the story of 3,000 citizen-soldiers mobilized to Eastern Afghanistan in 2010-2011. This, as the boilerplate says, was the largest deployment of Iowa National Guard troops since World War II.

Together, the Army Reserve, the Army National Guard, the Air Force Reserve, and the Air National Guard comprise the "Reserve Component" (R.C.).

The Total Force concept is also informally called the "Abrams Doctrine."

As Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. Creighton Abrams saw the Total Force policy as correcting a gap created by conscription—the draft—as well as the associated lack of popular support for the Vietnam War.

If large numbers of reserve and National Guard personnel were to be mobilized, the reasoning went, the communities and constituencies from which those soldiers came would be forced toward a decision point: Do they support whatever war was at hand?

John T. Correll, a former editor of Air Force Magazine, describes the premise this way:

In August 1974 [one year following the Total Force announcement], Abrams announced the Army force structure would increase to 16 combat-ready divisions by Fiscal 1978. The catch was integral brigades and battalions of those divisions and essential combat support would be in the Guard and Reserve. As a practical matter, it would be impossible to send the Army into anything more than a limited contingency without calling up the reserves. [Emphasis added]

Here's how the U.S. National Guard describes the events of Aug. 23, 1973 on its website:

Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces the adoption of the "Total Force Policy" as the new doctrine of American military preparedness. The war in Vietnam has just ended. One of the major conclusions drawn from that experience was that the American people had not supported the war because it was fought without a stated declaration and the Johnson Administration failed to mobilize and use large numbers of Reserve Component (RC) forces, including the National Guard. By conscripting individual men for service there is little notice by the larger community.

However, when an RC unit is mobilized, often taking dozens to hundreds of personnel at one time, attracting big local headlines and impacting whole communities in numerous ways. Only by having a supportive populous, one backing the effort, can American military objectives be met. By restructuring missions, trainings and equipment to more fully integrate RC units in with their active duty counterparts, it was hoped that the U.S. could never commit itself to another war without the debate sure to come by mobilizing the Guard and Reserves. [...] [Emphasis added]

I first arrived into the real-world Army in the early 1990s, when the country was in the middle of two other political "doctrines," each of which sought to define how and when U.S. forces would be deployed—and connected to popular opinion at home and abroad.

In a 1984 speech, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinburger argued that:

• The United States should not commit forces to combat unless the vital national interests of the United States or its allies are involved.

• U.S. troops should only be committed wholeheartedly and with the clear intention of winning. Otherwise, troops should not be committed.

• U.S. combat troops should be committed only with clearly defined political and military objectives and with the capacity to accomplish those objectives.

• The relationship between the objectives and the size and composition of the forces committed should be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.

• U.S. troops should not be committed to battle without a "reasonable assurance" of the support of U.S. public opinion and Congress.

• The commitment of U.S. troops should be considered only as a last resort.

Anecdotally, Operation Desert Storm would seem to validate the Abrams Doctrine. After all, it was a whole-hearted commitment of troops, as called for by both the "Weinburger Doctrine" and the derivative "Powell Doctrine." Massive mobilizations of reserve troops were more than tolerated—they were supported and celebrated.

The invasion of Iraq by coalition forces ended after 100 hours. Practically a flash in the musket pan.

After the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, however, the Reserve Component began to be transformed into an operational reserve, rather than a strategic one. Army forces were re-organized into modular units, each capable of deploying separately, rather than "rounding out" a larger unit.

The "brigade combat team" concept comes from this reorganization. Notably, Iowa's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division was one of the first Army units to reorganize.

In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, reserve units were routinely mobilized, rotating in and out of country, sometimes multiple times, over more than a decade. As Air Force Maj. Gen. Ron Dardis, then the adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard, reported to the Iowa state legislature in 2007: "They can't go to war without us."

Is that truly the case, however? Or, like the Abrams Doctrine it echoes, is the idea that citizen-soldiers can be a lifeline across the civil-military divide just so much magical thinking?

As mil-blogger and journalist Rebekah Sanderlin wrote, "[T]he American military went to war and America went shopping ..."

As I've observed elsewhere, the Iowa National Guard sent 3,000 citizen-soldiers—the equivalent of the small rural town in which I first worked as a newspaperman—and transported them halfway around the world to perform a mission on our republic's behalf. That's 3,000 mothers, sons, fathers, daughters, co-workers, neighbors, and employers.

The "Red Bull" soldiers went, because it was their duty. Or to test themselves. Or because their buddies were going.

They went to to answer the call of "God, Country, and Community." Or to seek out glory, adventure, or do good in the world. Or maybe they just needed the college money, or the regular paycheck.

Whatever their personal reasons, however, they ultimately went because "we the people" asked them to do it.

And they can't go to war without us.