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Show Veterans Still Cling to Tough Old Army Mule FORT BLISS, TEXAS. This is a mechanized age, and the army is utilizing its share of machine-transportation and power, but motor vehicles never will knock out the tough army mule. That's the consensus of military strategists at Fort Bliss, America's largest cavalry post. Historians at the fort who have done research work on the subject, say the mule started with the army. They base their prediction that the mule never will be entirely supplanted supplant-ed by motor transportation and power on the proved fact that the animal is at its best in rough going. They point out that big trucks can't get through heavy mud, climb trackless mountains, or go through jungles. The mule can. Capt. Richard E. Arnold, who is serving his twenty-first year in the army and who now commands the Fort Bliss mule pack train the only one in America insists that the mule represents much of the color and romance of the army. Captain Arnold's mule pack train Troop E includes 303 animals, 73 men and two officers, divided into four platoons. He and other veterans like to tell of the feats of sturdy mules in the World war and of the times they carried ammunition through to the front in France when trucks were mired in the mud or in shell holes. |