TO THE HORSE

World War II, outskirts of a town in France. “Hundreds of horses, evidently stolen from the French farmers, have been caught in the barrage. They look at us with puzzled, unblaming eyes, whinnying softly as their torn flesh waits for life to drain from it. We are used to the sight of dead and wounded men, but these shuddering animals affect us strangely. Perhaps we have been in the field too long to remember that innocence is also caught in the carnage of war. A horse, trailing entrails from a split stomach, staggers down the side of the road. Mahler, a gentle Texan who lived on a ranch in civilian life, stops; and I hand him the Luger which I took from the German colonel. He goes over to the hose and pats him on the neck. ‘What did they do to you , boy? What did they do?’ he croons. Then he raises the pistol and shoots the horse behind the ear. He hands the pistol back to me without speaking. ‘Keep the gun for a while,’ I say. ‘You’ll need it further on.’ As we move up the road, he begins to talk. ‘I’ve known horses all my life,’ he says; ‘and there’s not one dirty, mean thing about them. They’re too decent to blast each other’s guts out like we’re doing. Makes you ashamed to belong to the human race.’ ‘Yeah, I know horses too. For a time they were the only real friends I had. You couldn’t have had better. If I ever get out of this war, I want to live so far back in the hills that I’ll never see another human being.’ During our advance, he steps stoically over the corpses of Germans to put horses out of their agony with the Luger.

So writes Texas-born war hero, Audie Murphy in his memoir, TO HELL AND BACK. What happened to Mahler? Shortly after this period, Murphy writes that Mahler is hit. “He is on a routine patrol when he is struck in the back by a fragment from an air burst. His spine is injured; and I hear that his legs are paralyzed. Remembering his face as he patted and shot the horses, I wonder whether he will ever ride again.”

We, of course, will never forget our fallen soldiers. Today, when Super Saver won the Kentucky Derby we also remember the fallen horses. We continue to honor and love them and their descendants for their examples of patience, service and beauty.