Cowboys, meanwhile, had to qualify for their service by hitting a target from 25 yards while jumping a 2-foot barrier.
Brauneis was told by Racy Clark, a well-known figure in the Lander area at the time, that there was a trick to aiming while on horseback.
“You couldn’t aim the gun,” Brauneis said, so what Racy taught his cowboys to do was to “push the gun toward the target and fire.”
Each soldier ran through a riding course to learn to shoot while on horseback, applying that advice to the task. Only those who succeeded could stay with the 115th.
They never mention being able to shoot from a horse while not hitting the horse in the back of the head. That can be harder than it looks on TV.
You never read much about our troops who stayed stateside defending our homeland. My dad was one of them. He was navy, stationed on sub-chasers and later flying blimps escorting convoys and patrolling the coasts for u-boats.
My uncle was another. He was part of the corps of army engineers and helped build the Alcan highway. That was quite a feat and was completed in under 9 months. It was badly needed after the Japs set up housekeeping in the Aleutians and were threatening the mainland. Because of the permafrost, they had to learn a whole new style of road building to keep it from melting and turning the highway into a quagmire.
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