Out of the Saddle, Into the Fire

This powerful memoir tells how one man—a U.S. horse cavalryman—witnessed the collapse of an old world and endured the birth of a new one. From Fort Riley’s mounted drills to the jungles of Los Negros and Leyte, his journey spanned the U.S. Army’s transition from horses to mechanized war, and from youthful pride to lifelong trauma. The recollections of a 5th U.S. Cavalry trooper take the reader from prewar border patrols to the desperate battles of the Pacific: the rescue of 3,700 internees, including Army nurses, at Santo Tomas; the brutal house-to-house combat in Manila; and the daily grind of survival in the tropics. Public record sits beside private witness—flamethrowers clearing buildings, a wounded Japanese soldier detonating a grenade that kills himself and his would-be American rescuer, and the grim realization that “the more we fought them, the more we became like them.” Among millions who served, few began in the horse cavalry, and fewer still carried the cost of combat so long. This memoir keeps faith with one such soldier, tracing how duty, violence, and loss left a shadow that followed him for sixty-five years.