The Real War Horse

Reckless. What a name for a Mongol racehorse turned honorary U.S. Marine with two Purples Hearts, a Bronze Star, and an insatiable appetite for poker chips and beer. No way to treat a filly, you say . . . but then again, Reckless became a legend with a happy ending, no spoilers need apply.

“Reckless: The Racehorse Who Became a Marine Corps Hero” by Tom Clavin has it all: from an incessant repetition of nauseating-meets-devastating images of the Korean War to a Marine platoon with a leader who knows the worth of a horse in the entourage, one possessing a sixth sense for detecting an approaching enemy by the wafting scent of garlic and rice.

Reckless, the chestnut filly, weighed in at 900 pounds, measured a feminine 14 hands, dazzled in a fiery red coat highlighted with white stockings, and had racing genes that could have made her a champion.

Her Korean name was Ah-Chim-Hai (Flame-of-the-Morning), a star and a haiku in the making if ever there was one. But then another life in paradise was shattered by a call to duty that no horse, or any other being, would want to embrace.

War raged. Her soulful, poetic name was changed to Reckless, a tribute to the recoilless rifles that her platoon was armed with. Reckless had been drafted for $250.

Her first owner, Kim Huk Moon, had fallen in love with the filly’s mother, who died. He raised the filly reluctantly at first, but, overwhelmed by the loss of her dam, gave her up. Then, no more tears: The grown filly brought joy and renewal with her pronounced re-entrance.

“One morning, Kim arrived at Sinseul-dong and saw Flame — since she was the spitting image of her mother, everyone there simply called her that — in the center field of the track with several other young horses. Suddenly, she broke away from them at a gallop. To the young man, it seemed that his beloved Ah-Chim-Hai had come back to life, but with three instead of four stockings. Kim knew of the Buddhist teachings of reincarnation, and there could be no better evidence of it than the new Flame.”

In the course of fate, dharma, and destiny, however, an American Marine was thinking about a horse.

“The god of war had a sense of humor, all right. . . . Chinese troops fell like bowling pins. The slaughter became so senseless that even their usually merciless Communist commissars allowed them to retreat. . . .”

“It was that hot August night, as he idly heard the sounds of the fight still going on . . . that Pedersen [the second lieutenant in charge of the platoon] first had the idea of finding a horse. . . .”

“She was part stallion, but in every other respect she was a Mongol mare,” a breed “little changed from the time of Genghis Khan, whose hordes rode them to create by his death in 1227 the largest empire the world had known. . . .”

Reckless’s arrival at the camp was beyond welcome. She would learn to carry artillery and wounded men for miles. Her admirable spirit made her a Marine in her own right, while shrapnel wounds carved an imprint onto her weary being.

Any reader who isn’t bionic will fall in love with Reckless, her mythological dedication to duty on the front lines of battle, her playfulness, her historical breeding, and her soldiering on to the amazement of even the most jaded of human warriors.

Reckless adjusted to Marine life smoothly. Off-duty she wandered as she chose, slept near her fellow Marines, and shared their beer and breakfast. She learned to navigate holes in the ground where artillery had blown the landscape into a reminder that war raged on, and how to recognize barbed wire and communication wires and maneuver around them.

She played games with her trainers, dancing, and then pretended to be fierce when it was time to go off for her daily work lesson. A piece of candy persuaded her to get on with her day. Hoofing into a poker game, Reckless helped herself to a mouthful of poker chips, wondering what kind of candy they were.

Reckless became a co-Marine and a boost to the morale of her platoon. Pedersen “observed when some of the sergeants played poker . . . how their faces lit up when the horse’s name was mentioned. These tough Marines became kids again.”

White stockings aside, “Reckless” has all the markings of a horse story meant for the big screen.

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A former summer resident of East Hampton, Amy Phillips Penn is the author of “Diosa: One Mare’s Odyssey on Planet Earth.” She is working on a book about Elaine’s, the legendary Manhattan restaurant, for Skyhorse Publishing, and writes a weekly column for NewYorkNatives.com.

Tom Clavin’s previous books include “The DiMaggios” and “That Old Black Magic: Louis Prima, Keely Smith, and the Golden Age of Las Vegas.” He lives in Sag Harbor.