Marines Fighting Desperately In The Final Days Of The Korean War Are Able To Achieve Victory Thanks To A Little Horse Power.
Now That Should Be A Movie.
[A Note on Short Pitches: I recently took a producing workshop with the New York Film Academy. One topic was the short pitch – or the elevator pitch – in which you only have a minute to hook someone with your movie idea. From now on, my blog posts will begin with such a pitch.]
It’s called Reckless
Genera: War Drama
Tone: War Horse (2011, dir. Steven Spielberg)
It is like Black Beauty meets Hamburger Hill (1987, dir. John Irvin)
It follows committed Marine veteran Eric Pedersen
And a smart little red Mongolian mare named Reckless.
As they keep the Communist Chinese and North Koreans from giving their negotiators at the peace talks an upper hand by winning victories on the Main Line of Resistance (MLR).
Problems arise when The Chinese take major hills and both Pedersen and Reckless are wounded.
Together, their devotion and commitment to their mission and comrades will see them through some of the bloodiest fighting of the Korean War
The Idea came to me when watching an interview with veteran John King on the local news as he discussed being Reckless’ babysitter.
My Unique Approach is the homely and comedic story of a smart and hungry horse set against the epic scale, furious artillery battles and human carnage of the Korean War in its final days.
A set piece would be when the battle becomes so intense that Pedersen could not spare Marines to take the wounded to the medical tent. So, when Reckless appears bearing her load of death, he has the wounded put on her back to be taken to live. She quickly adapts to her new assignment. Instead of returning to the supply depot after dropping off her load of shells, she waits until a wounded leatherneck is placed on her back. When one Marine sees her emerging from the smoke, he thinks there’s a guardian angel riding her. Soon all the Marines begin cheering her on as she makes her way through the confusion and noise of battle.
The target audience would be horse lovers, military buffs and history students. I think men and women ages 30 to 60 would be interested in the subject matter.
Why would the story appeal to audiences? Because of the universal themes of commitment and devotion to duty and comrades, and the bonds that animals can make with humans.
So, what do you think?
Today’s story I would like to pitch as a movie is that of the equestrian Korean War veteran Staff Sergeant Reckless. I consulted two books for this post. Sgt. Reckless: America’s War Horse by Robin L. Hutton, from Regnery History, which focuses on the entire life of Reckless, including plenty of comedic situations and her post-war life in America. And Reckless: The Racehorse Who Became a Marine Corps Hero by Thomas Clavin, from New American Library, which includes so much human interest, examples of heroism, and anecdotes that if I had included all the notes I took wile reading it, this post would have been book length itself.
Korea, August 1952. The Korean Conflict has come to resemble the Western Front of World War I. Trenches, outposts and bunkers face each other in the hills along the 38th Parallel. The Marines average twenty-seven wounded a day and more than a hundred dead a month in the last sixteen months as peace talks between UN and Communist Chinese and North Korean negotiators over topics such as prisoner exchanges continue. For many leathernecks, it feels like they are dying for a tie.
Panmunjom has been chosen for the negotiations, two-mile-wide circular “No Fire” and “No Fly” zones drawn around the village. The zone extends to Freedom Road, on which the UN delegates and personnel drive to and from the meetings. Nearby stands Command Outpost No 2 (COP2). The Chinese launch a “creeping offense,” Operation Dig, to isolate COP2. Their plan includes firing from a village near the No Fire Zone, hoping that the Marines would not return fire with artillery and mortars due to the possibility of shells landing in the zone.
Operations in West Korea
by
LIEUTENANT COLONEL PAT MEID, USMCR and MAJOR JAMES M. YINGLING, USMC
In response, the Recoilless Rifle Platoon, Anti-Tank Company, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, led by Lieutenant Eric Pedersen, is placed on Molar, a hill resembling a tooth on the map. From this position, they turn the tables by firing on the Chinese, who could not fire back without hitting the restricted area. Lieutenant Pedersen was a World War II veteran, with a wife and two children back in the United States. He could have easily pulled strings to get himself a desk job in the States but had elected to stayed with his platoon. While the platoon is scouting Molar, Chinese snipers and mortars open fire on them. During the barrage, Pedersen threw himself on a Sergeant Willard Berry to shield him from the shrapnel because the Chinese had seen the lieutenant and were obviously aiming for him. “That was the kind of guy he was,” said Barry.
The location was ideal for firing on the Communist’s position, but troublesome for a recoilless rifle. The rifle, twenty-four pounds and two feet long, was awkward to carry and had to be moved after five firings due to dirt and dust kicked up from its back draft giving its position away to the enemy. The most difficult part of this procedure was moving the ammo. Supplying ammunition was already a great challenge as men had to haul two shells, each weighing twenty-four pounds. Two men would have to carry the ammunition over rugged terrain and up a steep hill for nearly half a mile, all within sight of the enemy.
Another reason for the Marines’ operation around Panmunjom was that once the peace treaty was agreed upon, both sides would keep what position they held. Bunker Hill, six hundred and sixty feet high, offered prime real estate. Kicking the Chinese off would give the UN negotiators more leverage.
It would be during the Battle for Bunker Hill (August 9, 1952 – September 30, 1952) that the logistical problems involving the ammunition would become most apparent. The Recoilless Rifle Platoon was supposed to make the Chinese think that the Marines were attacking another hill, Siberia. The diversion worked so well that the Chinese attacked Pedersen’s position. The shells lasted just long enough and the battled ended in a UN victory, at the cost of ninety-six Marines killed in action and three thousand nine hundred Chinese casualties. Two of the three Medals of Honor rewarded for the action would be posthumous, given to hospital corpsmen Edward Clyde Benfold and John E. Kilmer. Even though the platoon’s mission was a success, destroying the enemy’s supply dump, Pedersen knew there had to be a better way to supply the shells without exposing his men. Maybe a horse?
Pedersen, who had grown up around horses in Wyoming and Arizona, settled on the equestrian solution. He knew a horse could carry six to eight rounds faster than a man could carry two or three rounds. After receiving permission from the regimental commander, he hooked up a one-ton trailer to his jeep and headed into Seoul. He wondered what kind of horse he would find. Little did he know that the answer to his search started its own journey years before.
It started when a teenager Kim Huk Moon (a pseudonym), without his father’s knowledge, began working at the racetrack in Seoul, where the officers of Japan kept and ran their horses. When his father learned that Kim was skipping school, he was furious, but a Japanese officer stood up for the young man and Mr. Moon relented. Kim became a successful trainer and jockey, riding a horse named Flame. When World War II broke out, Kim and Flame went to work bringing in the harvest grown in the fields around a prisoners of war camp. He would save the lives of Allied POWs by smuggling food into the camp. When he was caught, the Japanese beat him so bad the sight in his left eye was damaged. Then they put him into a cage used to punish the POWs. When the war ended and word was received that Flame’s Japanese owner was deceased, American Marine sergeant Bill Duffy and an Australian rewarded Kim by writing up a letter attesting that Flame was his horse.
A few years later, Kim had Flame mate with a stallion. The filly that was born months later looked just like her dam and was called Flame of the Morning. But the joy of the birth was shaded by the death of Flame, in Kim’s arms, the same day. Another jockey, Choi Chang Ju, took Flame of the Morning to be raised by his own mare. A year would pass before the heartbroken Kim could bring himself to see young Flame again. When he did, he realized that she was the spitting image of her mother. After rescuing her from a pack of dogs, he and young Flame bonded. He began to train for the races. As he did so, he noticed that Flame seemed to detect his blind spot and would speed up whenever another horse got to close on that side.
However, the day of Flame’s first race, the North Koreans invaded the south. Kim hitched Flame to a cart and the led his family – mother, sister, niece, nephew – and a blind neighbor out of the city. When they came to a crowded ferry on the Hang River, Kim took the horse down river to find a fordable location. It took half-a-dozen trips, but Flame carried the family and their belongings across the river. Sadly, Kim’s mother caught a fever on the way to the Pusan Perimeter, the toehold the forces of freedom still held on the peninsula, and Kim buried her on a mountainside overlooking the Nakong River.
In the Spring of 1952, Kim decided it was safe to return to Seoul. Once again, he hitched Flame to the cart and the horse carried the family north. Even though the racetrack ground was now a landing field for the American army, Kim was able to board Flame in one of the stales. With racing out of the question, Kim used Flame to haul rice from the fields to government warehouses. With food still scarce, the children feed Flame with grass they picked from the hills surrounding the capitol.
One day, the jockey Choi showed up. He had been in the South Korean army, attached to the 2nd Division of the US Army. Unfortunately, he had lost an arm at the Battle of Wonju. However, one benefit of his wound was a certificate from an American doctor authorizing that he could receive medication and a prosthetic arm from the US military hospitals.
Choi’s injury turned out to be beneficial for Kim’s family. Kim’s sister, Chung Soon, was working in a rice field when another worker stepped on a landmine. In the ensuing explosion Chung Soon’s leg was injured so severely that doctors had it amputated. Choi told the doctors to write down the medications she would need and then disappeared outside. When Kim found him, he was committing a remarkable act of sacrifice. He had taken off his prosthetic army and was beating the stump of his arm with a stick. He explained to Kim that once the arm swelled up, he would be admitted to the hospital so he could pass the needed medications onto Chung Soon. When Kim visited Choi to get the medications, he was amazed to see Korean soldiers walking on artificial legs. He vowed he would find one for his sister.
It was shortly after Chung Soon’s injury that Pedersen and his comrades arrived at the racetrack looking for a horse. Choi led the Americans to Flame’s stall. Pedersen was surprised not just at the quality of Flame’s build, but also by the fact she walked right up to him unafraid. At first Kim did not want to sell Flame, but then Pedersen made his final offer of Two hundred and fifty dollars. Kim asked Choi if that would be enough to buy Chung Soon a leg. Choi said it would be. It was a deal. Pedersen loaded up Flame onto the trailer and drove away. One friendship had begun while another was left crying in the stall’s hay.
When the Mongolian mare arrived at the platoon’s camp, she was placed in the care of Private First-Class Monroe Coleman and Technical Sergeant Joe Latham. The two leathernecks trained Reckless to avoid barbed and communication wires, how to ascend and descend the terrain, and how to hit to deck when rounds were coming in. They even built a bunker for her to run to during enemy artillery attacks. But usually she shared the Marines’ own bunker with them. The men of the Recoilless Rifle Platoon of the 5th Marines were quickly becoming her herd. Eventually, they came up with a name for her, Reckless.
Some doubted that a horse could remain steady under fire. To condition her to the sounds of battle, one Marine would hold Reckless while another fired BARs and carbines .45s near her to condition her to the sounds of battle. They got her use to having a pack on her back for carrying shells. Then they slowly began adding shells to the pack.
Reckless’ baptism by fire came in late October 1952. The 5th Marines were to hold the center of the Jamestown Line, a series of defensive positions stretching from the Imjim River to a point east of Kumhaw. The platoon was stationed at a crescent bend in the river, The Hook, to keep the communists from taking Seoul.
Vehicles heading to the post, including the trailer carrying reckless, were ordered to do so with ten-minute intervals. After parkin, there was a five-hundred-yard climb to the platoon’s position on the ridgeline. In all, the distance to the firing site was two miles and a half, with the final yards a steep climb to the ridgeline. During the mission Reckless delivered five loads of ammunition. Even though she was loaded with 150 pounds of shells and nearly two hundred yards from the position of the recoilless, the “wham” sound of the blast nearly lifted her off the ground. Coleman heled on to her bridle and did his best to calm her.
“The second shot roared just as loudly, again, Reckless went airborne, although not as high this time. Coleman managed to talk her down. As she shook her head trying to stop the ringing in her ears, a third round left the tube. This time, reckless stood closer to Coleman and shook from the concussion of the blast. The third time was the charm for the rookie recruit because she didn’t jump and was breathing more easily”
Sgt. Reckless, Hutton, p. 50
The Marines noticed that throughout the day Reckless was sweating and assumed that it was because of her heavy load. However, according to veterinarians, horses only sweat when they are afraid. Yet despite her fear, she did everything the Marines expected her to do, delivering thirty shells over a half dozen trips. The ammunition she supplied helped destroyed Chinese trench making abilities. Once the mission was completed, she was so hungry she ate the liner out of a helmet.
The loss and immediate recapture of the Hook from October 26 to 28 was some of the fiercest fighting of the entire war. When one hill was overrun by the Chinese, only three of the Marine defenders survived. The Chinese fired thirty-four thousand rounds and suffered two hundred ninety-six casualties. America losses were seventy-nine dead and thirty-nine missing. One, Sherrod Skinner Jr., killed just three days shy of his twenty-third birthday, would receive The Medal of Honor for his actions.
In late November 1952 shrapnel hit Pedersen in the leg and hip during a Chinese artillery assault. While not serious, this would be his third Purple Heart, which meant an automatic transfer out of combat duty. While the platoon raised enough money to buy Reckless from the lieutenant, Pedersen was able to convince his superior, General Edward A. Pollock, that it was necessary for him, due to ownership of Reckless, to remain with the platoon. The grateful Marines thanked Reckless with a snack of bread and strawberry jam.
Even while in reserve, Reckless was still a necessary part of the platoon. She would transport supplies, rations and even barbwire. She did the job of a dozen men by stringing communication wire that unspooled from a pack on her back as she walked. She also lifted the Marine’s spirits, serving as comedic relief, or annoyance, depending on the situation. Like the time she cost Latham thirty dollars when she ate his chips during a game of poker. Because of winter conditions, hay and food could not be transported to the front, so the Marines would go on grass patrol, crawling over the hills on their hands and knees and gathering up armloads until they had enough to feed a hungry horse.
In January 1953, the platoon was sent to support the Nevada Cities Complex – hills Vegas, Reno, and Carson. If these hills fell to the Communists, it would give the Reds a hand to play at the peace talks, as well as placing them in a position to attack Seoul. The outposts drew their names from the fact that the Reds held higher ground surrounding the complex, making it a gamble if the Americans could hold the place. From the Nevada cities the Marines could track the Chinese movements and send out patrols to capture prisoners for questioning. Reno was the farthest to get to, so the Marines had a position between Reno and the other hills known as the Reno Block. Behind the complex was a road that led to the South Korean capitol. If the Marines fell back to the other side of the Imjin River, the flanks of Army units would be exposed and they would have to retreat across the Samichon River, leaving the road south open. These hills would be the epicenter of the 1953 Campaign.
The platoon was placed on Hill 120. If the Chinese occupied the hills facing Vegas, it would be under the hail of recoilless rifle shells. Reckless practiced running up the hill at a forty-five-degree incline. After a running start, she trotted the first two hundred yards and then threw herself up the hill, where she waited for the Marines. The crew rewarded her with candy.
On January 31, in support of Raid Tex, an operation to stop the Chinese “creeping offensive” and capture prisoners for interrogation, Reckless would make fifteen trips carrying six rounds a trip, a total of a ton of explosives. The hill was steep, but she simply ran up the ridge and lurched over the top. Over the next month, the little red mare would take place in ten small but dangerous missions on the MLR. The resulting casualties on the US side from one operation, Clambake, told commanders that the coming year would be just as bloody as the previous.
It was during Operation Charlie, an effort to retake Hill 15 (Detroit), that the Marines recognized Reckless’ value. The operation was a success, destroying eight enemy bunkers and five guns, capturing one gun and burning out three caves. Twelve thousand rounds were fired at Hill 15, including seven hundred rounds of 90-mm shells. Reckless covered more than twenty miles, hauling three thousand, five hundred pounds of explosives, one hundred forty-four rounds, six rounds a trip.
When Spring arrived, the possibility of a Chinese offensive grew. Marines guarding Reno prepared by throwing their empty C ration cans into a nearby gully. If the enemy approached, the rattling of the cans would alert the defenders. With 1.1 million communists facing nine hundred thirty-two thousand Americans, the Marines needed the help they could get.
At seven PM on March 26, The Battle for the Nevada Cities began with coordinated attacks by three thousand five hundred Chinese. They threw everything they had at the Marines., firing one hundred eighty rounds of explosives per minute at the complex. Meanwhile 60-mm and 82-mm mortar rounds and 76-mm shells fell on outposts Carson and Reno. In twenty minutes twelve hundred rounds hit the second outpost. For an entire hour, a mortar round fell on Carson every forty seconds. One veteran said the night was lighted up like the Fourth of July.
Each outpost had forty to fifty men. When the outposts were overran by the enemy, the surviving Marines would run into caves and call American artillery down on the position. When the Chinese attacked Reno, only seven marines made it into the cave. Marines were sent to rescue the force were able to take Reno Block with a bayonet charge. But Hill Reno was lost. When the Commies attacked Carson, they outnumbered the Marines twenty to one. Hand to hand combat with bayonets, knifes and bare fists ensued, but Carson was held. By midnight, after five hours of fighting in which Marines were reduced to throwing rocks at the Reds, Reno and Vegas had fallen.
Right before the battle started, Reckless had wondered up to the front line to visit the leathernecks from another platoon. When the attacks began, the Marines put her in a trench, where she surprised them by kneeling down close to the earth. When the Marines threw their flak jackets over her, she kept them on. Except for the one they had placed over her head, which she threw off with a shake.
On the morning of the 27th, Major General Pollock decided that the American counterattacks would focus on Vegas, starting at nine in the morning. The Marines knew this would not be like the small actions from the past year. It would be like World War I in which companies and battalions would charge over the top of their trenches with fixed bayonets, screaming and yelling. One officer referred to Vegas as “The Highest Beachhead in Korea.” Though, unlike the islands in the pacific during World War II, the Marines could not hop around Vegas. They would have to ram through. The Recoilless Platoon position was on Hill 120, where they were to support the counterattack on Vegas while disrupting Chinese efforts to shift men and materials from Reno to bolster their defenses.
The recapture of Outpost Vegas would be the ultimate test for Reckless. Coleman noticed her tail twitching explosion. She started at a trot with six shells on her back going up one ridge, down and then through open terrain where the Chinese could see her. Then, with one hundred fifty pounds on her back, she charged up the final hill, showering the Marines behind her with dirt and stones. She treated the trail like a race, trotting through the open ground and then galloping up the slope like it was a straightway on a racetrack. The final climb was an incline at forty-five degrees. One last burst of energy and she would arrive atop the ridge.
To support the attack, Pedersen had to move his firing site forward, creating a longer trip for Reckless. Reckless continued her trips up and down the hill as if by instinct. First, she trotted, then she galloped up a fifty-five-degree incline, and then navigated two hundred fifty feet of twisting trail. In total the run from the Hill 120 was five hundred and fifty yards from the ammunition supply point, while the hike to the firing site was an additional seven hundred yards. The closest firing site was a twelve-minute trip, the farthest, twenty minutes. She was making two of these trips for each one taken by the Marines who carried two, sometimes three, rounds. She was carrying nearly one hundred eighty pounds. The Marines were so inspired by her that they risked their lives by throwing their flak jackets over her, quickly transforming her appearance into something medieval. Towards the end of the battle, she began to creep up the hillside, taking two or three rest stops. Latham began to give her minute rests and reduced her load to six canisters. He shared his limited water and c-rations with her to give her energy.
Reckless had made ten trips by one pm. She was breathing hard and sweating. Sometimes she arrived to find the company had moved to avoid enemy detection, but she was never confused. After finding them and being relieved of her burden, she would wait sometimes, curiously watching the battle below. Even though the Reckless Platoon had convinced Chinese reinforcements to say on the sidelines, at least three thousand five hundred communists resisted the outnumbered Marines attacking Vegas. Some Chinese began attacking the platoon’s position, but Pedersen and the leather stayed focused on their mission.
Pedersen was receiving calls to send every available man to join in the attack. Out of the question was Coleman and Latham, who were staggering and taking longer to get up the hill than Reckless, who outran them even though her bridle was rubbing her raw. With casualties also mounting, Pedersen could not spare two men to carry a wounded Marine back down the hill. Reckless had a new mission as a stretcher bearer. She quickly adjusted to casualties being placed on her back. One veteran recalled thinking when he saw her emerge from the smoke performing her new task that a guardian angel was riding her. Soon on every downhill trip, Reckless would carry a wounded man. She no longer stopped to linger and watched the fire show, but only to wait for the wounded to be placed on her back before continuing her journey.
Chinese snipers began concentrating their fire on Hill 120, testifying to the effectiveness of the recoilless platoon. They eventually began aiming for Reckless, but she ignored the bullets pelting the ground around her. Her load was increased to eight shells, two hundred pounds, but she still had more strength than the human ammo bearers. Once Coleman reached the summit, he would throw himself to the ground, heaving as he grasped for breath. He could not spare time to feed or water Reckless, lest the platoon run out of shells. She made do by once again eating the liner of a helmet. With the added weight of the saddle, she was carrying two hundred fifty pounds. But she was a Marine and had a job to do.
On one trip, a mortar landed nearby, shrapnel slicing her above the left eye. But she still ran up the final slope. As the Marines began to recapture Vegas, hundreds of new Chinese troops appeared and tried to reenforce their comrades’ position. Pedersen had to keep them pinned down.
By now, Reckless had been hit by shrapnel again on the left flank. But it didn’t stop her from completing her fortieth trip. If she had been a man, a corpsman would have her stop and rest. Marines began to cheer as she passed by. Some used her as a shield, believing her to be a good luck charm. In return, when the Chinese open fire on the platoon’s position with Willie Pete, the Marines sheltered her behind rocks from the fiery liquid.
By the second day Reckless had lost weight and was beginning to walk with a gimp. Even with twenty-eight tons of explosives, more than a ton a minute, dropping on Vegas just four hundred fifty feet away, Reckless shuddered due to exhaustion, but not fright. The Reckless Platoon was firing directly into the trenches ahead of the advancing infantry. With her help, the Americans were retaking Vegas.
The fight to retake the summit of Vegas crested at five thirty on the evening of the twenty-seventh and by three on the afternoon of the twenty-eight, the hill was securely in American hands. After the furious battle to retake Vegas, Marine commanders decided that Hill Reno would not be worth the casualties. Instead, a blistering bombardment of bombs and artillery would pulverize the enemy’s position, effectively nullifying its position for a staging area and wiping it from the map. For the next two days the Chinese fought to retake Vegas, but the Marines held them off.
On the morning of the 30th, the Marines began singing The Marine’s Hymn. After eighty hours of combat, the bloodiest battle so far for the Marines on the western front was over. One hundred five thousand shells had been fired, so many that some crashed into each other and exploded midair. Three Medals of Honor and ten Navy Crosses would be given for exemplary bravery. One thousand fifteen Marines had become casualties. One hundred sixteen killed, eight hundred and one wounded and ninety-eight missing, including nineteen captured. Reckless received two Purple Hearts for her wounds. She had carried three hundred eighty-six rounds of ammunition, nine thousand pounds, nearly five tons of explosives, for a total of fifty-one trips over thirty-five miles.
Although Reckless would take part in The Fourth Battle of The Hook, or the Battle of Samichon River, which occurred in July and only ended when the armistice was announced, The Battle For Outpost Vegas proved to be her crowning moment of service due to its importance. The Communist had thrown everything they had at the outposts and all they had to show for it was thousands of casualties and a shattered force. The embarrassed high command had to pass the word onto their negotiators that they were ready to discuss with the UN the long-standing proposal for the return of sick and wounded prisoners. This concession by the reds proved to be the first in a long series of concessions that led to the truce four months later. “The victory by the First Division,” writes Tom Clavin, “spearheaded by the 5th Marine Regiment, turned the tide of the war by bursting through the diplomatic logjam.”
During the battle, Pedersen was promoted. He would soon be rotated home. When Reckless’ story became public, a campaign was launched to bring her to the United States. But before they did so, the Marines took her by the racetrack in Seoul to have her shoed. Kim Huk Moon got to see Flame one last time.
In addition to her two Purple Hearts, Reckless would also be rewarded the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, the Presidential Unit Citation with One Service Star, the Navy Unit Citation, the National Defense Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, The French Fourragère, the Korean Service Medal with three stars, the Dickin Medal, the Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery, and the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation. The 1997 Life Magazine collector’s edition “Celebrating Our Heroes” included Reckless among Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Jefferson, and John Wayne. A statue of her stands in Semper Fidelis Memorial Park outside the National Museum of the Marine Corps near Quantico, Virginia. Limited edition collector’s items can be found in the gift shop. A few children’s books have been written as well.
Almost immediately after Reckless arrived in the United States, there were calls for her story to be told in film. However, Andrew Geer, the author of the first book on her, Reckless: Pride of the Marines, and her fellow Marines feared Hollywood would turn her into the next Francis the Talking Mule (even though there are plenty of examples of her excessive appetite that would make for a good comedy). When Geer asked one producer how much he would pay to a foundation for the children and wives of Marines, a requirement for public appearances, and the producer replied “nothing,” Geer told him that was all the footage he would get. Even John Wayne tried to get Reckless’ story told by his production company, Batjac, saying she would be the star, upstaging him in every scene. However, despite the publicity around the proposal, the film was never made.
More recently, author Robin Hutton has written a screenplay, but when it was announced that Steven Spielberg was making a film on a similar subject, a horse during war time, War Horse, no producer would touch it due to the impossibility of competing with such an A-lister. I believe it is time that Reckless’ story should be told in a way that honors our Korean War veterans by showing both the horrors they faced and bravery they and their equestrian comrade showed in the face of battle.
Because of its human-interest story involving the bond between men and their animal during drastic times is why I believe Sergeant Reckless deserves a movie honoring our Korean War veterans.
