Lt. Col. Reginald R. Reeves is an attorney who lives in Sun Valley and practices family law in Idaho Falls.
By Lt. Col. Reginald R. Reeves, USA-Ret.
Former president Gerald Ford, who died on Dec. 26, 2006, at 93, is being accorded military honors with a history of thousands of years.
The most poignant memory most of us have of the funerals of Presidents Roosevelt, Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Johnson, is of the riderless, black horse, with boots reversed in the stirrups, which followed the flag-draped casket on the black caisson.
The same horse, "Black Jack," was used for the Kennedy, Hoover and Johnson funerals (as well as for Gen. Douglas MacArthur), while another, named "Raven," was used for President Eisenhower.
While the origin of the custom is lost to antiquity, much of its history is known.
The Military District of Washington dates the practice to the custom of having the horse of a deceased military officer led in the funeral procession, then sacrificed at the burial of the warrior. Horses are no longer sacrificed in such cases, but the custom of a riderless horse being led in the funeral procession of a fallen warrior has continued.
Generally, the horse was hooded and covered, and bore a saddle with stirrups inverted and a sword through them to symbolize the fact that the fallen warrior would ride no more.
At the time of Ghengis Khan, the Mongols and Tartars believed the spirit of the sacrificed horse went "through the gate of the sky" to serve its master in the afterworld.
The European folk belief was that the dead horse would find its dead master in the hereafter, so that the master's spirit would not have to walk.
After the arrival of horses in North America, the custom was adopted by the plains Indians. An Omaha chief, Blackbird, was buried sitting astride his favorite horse.
Historical records indicate that President George Washington was the first president of the United States to be honored by the inclusion of the caparisoned horse in his funeral cortege, carrying his saddle, pistols, and holsters.
Years later, the honor was accorded to President Abraham Lincoln. When his body was taken from the White House to lie in state in the Rotunda of the Capitol, in 1865, the casket was followed by the deceased president's horse, with the master's boots reversed in the stirrups.
Originally, for the caparisoned horse to be used, the person being honored must at one time have been an Army or Marine Corps colonel, with mounted cavalry or artillery service, or a General Officer.
The president qualifies, by virtue of the dual position as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Today, in a more democratic military, the use of the caparisoned horse in a full-honors funeral is authorized for: sergeants major; command sergeants major; any former cavalry officer, regardless of rank; any Army or Marine Corps officer with the rank of colonel through general of the Army; the president of the United States or any person designated by the president or other authority.
The honor of maintaining the tradition now resides with the Army's only mounted caisson unit, the 40-member Caisson Platoon of the 3rd U.S. Infantry, The Old Guard, at Fort Myer, Va., which performs its duties at Arlington National Cemetery.
Lt. Col. Reginald R. Reeves, USA-Ret.
