"THE HANDCART BOYS"
He's lying in the tree line, blood running down his arm.
Listening for the sound of the Handcart boys, to remove him from this harm.
He flew in on a modern jet that got shot down in this affray.
But he is no different than the wounded at Shiloh, trying to survive, till they safely take him away.
In the dark of the night she waits with so much pain to bear.
Injured in the crash of her aircraft and now this seemly endless nightmare.
Where is the chopper that will lift her from the smoke, the fire and the pain?
Where are the Handcart boys, hurry, her life is beginning to drain? He was wounded when a round slammed onto the "cruiser's" deck.
Shards of metal are protruding from the right side his neck.
The corpsman has stopped the bleeding; he's been prepared, to be extracted in the night.
The Handcart boys are racing his way, and will be there by first light.
Get in, get them out, and hurry back, to the safety of our lines.
It has been this way since ancient wars, to the battles of modern times.
The two-wheel Handcart is the way the wounded were removed from battles in past wars.
Our modern Handcart has a rotor-blade and sliding doors.
Look at history, look at art work, or at movies if you will.
When it came to removing the wounded off of some war torn desolate hill.
It was a Handcart carrying the broken and the dying with their screams of pain.
It was a Handcart transporting at Normandy in the cold June rain.
Every branch of the service has its modern version of the Handcart boys who respond to the call.
They go out for the wounded and dead, bring them back, get them all.
Some times the Handcart boys are brought back in a Handcart not of their own.
Some times they become the wounded & the dying, and for their efforts, they never come home.
There are also women who work these, latter-day Handcarts and their lives too, are on the line.
It is a dangerous mission, but just as their predecessors they to make that recovery in time.
They move out over the desert, into the night as the sand blows and swirls.
These Handcart operators are our Handcart girls.
I have a two-wheeled wooden handcart with an old worn flag sitting out on my front lawn.
It is not a protest, it's a reminder of our injured, who returned by Handcart, lying there upon.
In order to defend this Nation, we will continue to send the brave & young, our freedom they earn.
And we will always have a need for the Handcarts, for our wounded and dead, they must return.
Major Van E. Harl, USAF Ret. 15 March 2003
Vanharl@aol.com
Special Operations Wing – SOW
Pigs are important in special-ops.
One is always on guard duty at Rescue Rock.
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Trying to Kill Each Other
By Major Van Harl, (USAF)Ret.
One of my pre-Revolutionary War grandfathers was a Horton from Long Island, New York. Many of his direct descendents with that surname were in Iowa when the Civil War broke out. Three brothers from Muscatine, Iowa joined the Union Army, Charles, James and Edwin. Lt. James L. Horton became an officer in the 8th Iowa Cavalry.
In Aug of 1864 the 8th Iowa Cavalry was with Sherman on his march to Atlanta, Georgia. As the Confederates were being pushed out of Atlanta, they fell back to Lovejoy’s Station, which was a major supply depot. Sherman wanted it destroyed and this turned into the last win for the Confederates on the battlefield in the Civil War.
Young Lt. Horton had just taken command of his unit. On the morning of 20 Aug. In a rush to arms he grabbed one of his Sergeant’s jackets and rode off into battle. Lt. Horton was killed that day. He was wounded so many times that he either took a volley of rifle fire or was the victim of artillery grape shot. (Grape shot is where you substitute the large cannon ball for a cloth packet of small rifle balls. When the bag is fired into a crowd of men, it opens up, spreads out and works like a giant shotgun. It is extremely nasty stuff and to this day the military still uses a form of grape shot.) Lt. Horton’s body was not really recognizable, but his men knew it was him and they buried their young leader at Lovejoy’s Station.
In 1866 James’ two brothers drove a horse and wagon team from Muscatine, Iowa to Lovejoy’s Station to remove his body from the battlefield and return it to Iowa. On the Iowa State Civil War Monument there is a statue of Lt. James Horton representing the cavalrymen of that state. The family was
never really sure it was James they buried until years later at a reunion of the 8th Iowa Cavalry. The Sergeant whose jacket James had mistakenly put on the morning of his death was there to tell the family the story. With sadness the Horton family was relieved.
I got a phone call the other day from a man named Hord. He had the pistol his Civil War grandfather had carried and wanted some information on restoring the handgun. We had such an enjoyable time speaking on the phone that we met for lunch later that week. Mr. Hord’s grandfather was in the First Texas Light Artillery known as the Douglas Artillery. It was the only Texas artillery unit to fight east of the Mississippi River. My Civil War grandfather, Private George Bennett, was in the 24th Indiana Light Artillery. The 24th Indiana and the Douglas Artillery were in multiple engagements, facing off against each other from 1863 to 1865.
On 20 Aug 1864, the 24th Indiana Light Artillery, the Douglas Texas Artillery and the 8th Iowa Cavalry were all at Lovejoy’s Station.
There is a good chance that Lt. Horton was killed by canon grape shot, but by whose canon? The battlefield was very fluid and mistakes were made on both sides. It was a running gun battle with artillery firing and then moving quickly to a new location to fire again. Artillery units were firing counter battery fire at each other, as well as troops in the open.
Mr. Hord’s grandfather was trying to kill my grandfather, and my grandfather Bennett was trying to kill Sergeant Tom Hord. In the process my distant relative Lt. Horton was killed. I can only assume if a Hord had killed a Bennett or the other way round at Lovejoy’s Station, I would not have been having a very enjoyable lunch that day. One of us would not have been there.
So what, this is old history? The word is secession. That was what the eleven southern states did when they left the Union in 1861. Secession is a word I see all too often in today’s communication. Texas and secession appear more and more on the internet. You can laugh it off at first but it really is not funny. The above related story was only a small part of my families’ involvement in the Civil War. I had Union and Confederate members fighting on the maternal and paternal sides of my family. Secession is ugly and civil war is even uglier. And we still have grape shot for our artillery in the form of flechettes--known as beehive rounds and they are the ugliest.
Majpr Van Harl, (USAF)Ret
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