Photo By Sgt. Amber Bohlman | Prospective silver spur candidates are water-logged by the Caribbean tide in order to...... read more read more
Subscribe
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – Twenty-four hours — 24 painstakingly-long, skill-testing, miserable hours.
That is the amount of time it took for 126 participants to dwindle down to 107. That’s the number of service members who completed the 2nd Annual Guantanamo Spur Ride and earned the right to wear their silver spurs.
Service members from almost every branch gathered at 4 a.m. Feb. 28 to participate in a time-honored cavalry tradition known as The Order of the Spur.
“The spur ride is a tradition that encompassed seven events, builds camaraderie and teamwork and esprit de corps. Physically and mentally challenging the candidates to have what it takes to earn their spurs,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jeremy Robertson, first sergeant of Crazy Horse Troop, 1st Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment.
“As a cavalry organization, we believe in following and upholding the traditions of our organization and our regiment. The multi-services that are here at Joint Task Force GTMO provided us an opportunity to open that history and tradition up to not only the Army, but also the Navy and not only to the cavalry and infantry Soldiers but also to MPs, supply, and intelligence Soldiers,” Robertson said.
This is the second time in GTMO history that a spur ride has been opened up to members of other services. Crazy Horse Troop made sure to leave their mark, changing the event from 12 hours to 24 and modifying the events to suit their skill sets.
“Having it open to other branches and duty positions (other than cavalry and infantry) kind of emphasizes what we do at Guantanamo Bay. It’s a joint mission, so we have every branch here working and kind of sharing the duties,” said Sgt. 1st Class Ronald Wycoff, Crazy Horse Troop operations sergeant.
Spur holders from all different units gathered together, reminiscing about the day they earned their spurs, encouraging the spur candidates to not give up and to prove that they deserve to wear them, Wycoff said.
Robertson was astounded by the service members that participated.
“We saw some outstanding examples of Soldiers that weren’t even in our unit that spent hours upon hours studying that guide and literally came to our station and out of 113 questions probably got almost 100 of them correct.”
As the day came to an end, or rather a beginning (as it was 6 a.m. on March 1) 107 participants walked away with certificates giving them the right to don their silver spurs. Six participants, now spur holders, were picked out and awarded their spurs.
“It feels amazing to finally have my spurs. I worked hard. We all did and we all saw the results,” said Spc. Andrew Schuler, assistant to the training noncommissioned officer.
| Date Taken: | 02.28.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 04.23.2015 14:47 |
| Story ID: | 160997 |
| Location: | GUANTANAMO BAY, CU |
| Hometown: | FORT CAVAZOS, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 54 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Cavalry tradition shared, by SGT Amber Bohlman, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT