100 years later, 2nd Sqdn., 13th Cav. Regt., revisits Columbus, N.M.

Photo By Winifred Brown | Capt. Ben Jones, left, 2nd Squadron, 13th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, talks to Prince McKenzie about historic guns at Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, N.M., March 12, 2016. (Photo by Wendy Brown, Fort Bliss Bugle  

COLUMBUS, NM, UNITED STATES

08.25.2016

Story by Winifred Brown  

Fort Bliss Public Affairs Office

By Wendy Brown
Fort Bliss Bugle Editor

COLUMBUS, New Mexico – As more than 70 Soldiers from the 2nd Squadron, 13th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, waited at the intersection of New Mexico State Roads 9 and 11 on Saturday, Jason Torrez, 3, stood at the edge of a crowd of spectators and pointed his plastic, orange-tipped gun to the south as a band of Mexicans on horses approached.
Dressed in a cowboy hat and jeans, Jason made it clear he was ready should trouble break out, but none would. This was a peaceful venture, planned to memorialize the 100th anniversary of the day eight Soldiers and 10 civilians, including a pregnant woman, died when Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa led a band of about 485 men on a raid of the small border town in the early morning hours of March 9, 1916.
Lt. Col. Robert Born, commander, 2nd Sqdn., 13th Cav. Regt., and Command Sgt. Maj. Christopher Kohunsky, the unit’s command sergeant major, led the parade to the town plaza as about 3,000 spectators looked on. Villa impersonator Rafael Celestino Adame and his followers on horseback calmly fell into the parade as Adame played to the crowd, pointing his fingers like pistols, smiling and posing for pictures.
For Soldiers of the 2nd Sqdn., 13th Cav. Regt., however, the day had a more serious significance.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to reconnect with our history, and it reinforces the principles that made the 13th Cavalry Regiment successful a hundred years ago still apply to this very day,” Born said. “Duty. Personal courage. Audacity. Discipline. All those things were decisive in making us successful and repulsing Pancho Villa and his Villistas, and we still use those guiding principles and values to this day in guiding us to conduct cavalry operations on the modern battlefield.”
On Friday, members of the unit conducted a staff ride and visited places in the town of 1,628 where the battle occurred, approximately three miles north of the Mexican border. The next day, they raised the 48-star flag and conducted reveille with a group of about 40 reenactors from the Great War Historical Society, participated in the parade and held a memorial at the base of Cootes Hill in Pancho Villa State Park. The park is the former site of Camp Furlong, where the 2nd Sqdn., 13th Cav. Regt., was based in 1916.
New Mexico officials named the park after Villa in 1959, according to news reports, and although people have objected over the years, the name remains.
During the memorial, however, the day’s harsh winds quieted for a short time as reenactors and members of the 2nd Sqdn., 13th Cav. Regt., loudly called out the names of the Soldiers who died in the raid.
They were: Pvt. Thomas F. Butler, 26, who died in the battle; Sgt. Mark A. Dobbs, 24, who died manning a machine gun; Pvt. Fred A. Griffin, 19, a young sentry who not only gave the first warning of the attack, but killed his attacker with his 1903 Springfield; Pvt. Frank T. Kindval, 27, a farrier who died while trying to corral the horses; Sgt. John C. Nievergelt, 50, a member of the band who was shot as he led his family to safety; Cpl. Paul Simon, 26, a clarinet player who died when a bullet pierced the wall of his barracks; Pvt. Jessie P. Taylor, 23, a Soldier who fought against the attackers and died the day following at Fort Bliss; and Cpl. Harry Wiswell, 38, who died pursing the attackers to the Mexican border.
Members of the 2nd Sqdn., 13th Cav. Regt., ran the attackers out of town within two hours, but not before killing about 75 of them. The raid kicked off Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing’s Punitive Expedition into Mexico in search of Villa. Pershing never found him, and Villa, who died in 1923, never returned to the United States.
Capt. Jeramie Jackson, a member of the 2nd Sqdn., 13th Cav. Regt., said the weekend was an eye opening experience. He stopped at the park on his way from Arizona once, but didn’t realize the full significance of the town until he visited with his unit.
“The staff ride was really informative,” he said.
Helen Patton, granddaughter of Gen. George S. Patton (a member of Pershing’s expedition as a lieutenant), spoke at the town plaza after the parade. For the past two years, Patton said she has traveled throughout Europe thanking Europeans for the friendship and forgiveness they have expressed since World War II. She continued that theme in Columbus.
“We are friends, and now to come here at this very border – it’s so significant,” Patton said. “So I’d just like to say thank you on behalf of my family.”

• Date Taken: 08.25.2016
• Date Posted: 08.25.2016 17:42
• Story ID: 208232
• Location: COLUMBUS, NM, US