When I was in the 595th Engineer Company (LE) in 1967-68 we had a mascot, a burro called Le. Le was pronounced Lee. The LE in our company designation stood for Light Equipment. How a mass of bulldozers, graders, scrapers (90,000 pounds), flatbed trailers, 5-ton dump trucks, and many more could be called "light" is beyond me. One guy told me it was because our crane had a maximum lifting capacity of only 20,000 pounds.
Anyway, Le was kept on a long tether at an abandoned company area across the street from ours and alongside a small aircraft runway. He was mean. A sergeant who was assigned to feed him had to run for his life if he got too close to Le. Maybe the burro objected to being left in the 120-degree sun without companions all day. Who knows? In the bio I read on line he was credited with being friendly and living at the motor pool. Maybe that was before I arrived.
Eventually, Le was shipped back to the States and ended up living the good life at Fort Riley.
My clearest memory of him was that he made Spec-4 before I did. He made sergeant when he arrived at Fort Riley.
In 1969 he was discharged to a farm in Kansas where he lived a long and happy life.
3 comments:
We had a burro for a short time when I was a kid. Meanest animal ever.
Love this. Reminds me of Reckless of Korean War fame.
Love this. Reminds me of Reckless of Korean War fame.
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