Never Volunteer? One Horse Cavalryman’s Tale

SGT George Grassman, 5th Infantry Division, 4th Squadron, 12th Cavalry, Ft. Carson, Colorado, did what every soldier is told NOT to do: volunteer. Yet there he was, a draftee mortarman (11C20) in 1965, in formation, listening to his infantry Platoon Sergeant lament about there not being enough horsemen to fill the saddles in an elite group of soldiers who would eat, sleep, live and breathe with one of the last cavalry outfits in the United States Army.

Little did George know at the time, he would be part of an original group of volunteers of the Ft. Carson Mounted Color Guard, whose motto, Semper Paratus means, “Always Ready.”