Sergeant Reckless or, strictly, Staff Sergeant Reckless, was a small, Mongolian-bred mare, who held official rank in the United States Marines Corps and served, with distinction, in the last nine months of the Korean War, which ended in July 1953. The mare was reputedly bought, as a three- or four-year-old, by Lieutenant Eric Petersen of the 75mm Recoilless Rifle Platoon for $250 at Seoul Racecourse in October 1952.
Her previous owner was Kim Huk Moon, a young Korean boy who needed the money to buy a prosthetic leg for his sister, who had been disabled by a land mine. Her name, ‘Reckless’, was a corruption of the ‘ Recoilless’ in the platoon title and she was trained as pack horse to carry munitions and other supplies over the rugged, mountainous terrain of South Korea.
Much beloved of her fellow Marines, Reckless enjoyed her finest hour at the Battle of Outpost Vegas, which took place in Yeoncheon County, South Korea between March 26 and March 30, 1953. In a single day, the diminutive mare made a total of 51 trips to the front line, more often than not completely on her own, and carried over 9,000lb of ammunition, all in the face of intense incoming fire.
Despite being wounded twice by shrapnel, above her left eye and on her left flank, she never stopped and subsequently received a battlefield promotion to corporal. She was further promoted to sergeant at the end of the Korean War in 1954 and, again, to staff sergeant, in 1959. She was also awarded two Purple Hearts for her bravery and service and is commemorated by statues at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia, Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California (where she lived after the Korean War) and the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky.
Off the battlefield, Reckless was renowned for a voracious, and varied, appetite. Her diet apparently included scrambled eggs, pancakes, cake, sweets, Coca Cola and, like any red-blooded soldier, beer. Nevertheless, she became a national heroine in the United States and has been described as the greatest war horse ever to serve that country.