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“Like so many others at that terrible time, he ended up having to start from scratch in a new place, and like so many others, he was lucky to have found kindness and a new home among strangers. Perhaps, like his human counterparts, Witez never forgot his hunger for home, but he thrived in his adopted country”(287-288)

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“Like so many others at that terrible time, he ended up having to start from scratch in a new place, and like so many others, he was lucky to have found kindness and a new home among strangers. Perhaps, like his human counterparts, Witez never forgot his hunger for home, but he thrived in his adopted country”(287-288)

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This quote is describing one of the horses rescued many years after he had found a safe new home at a barn in the United States. Letts' uses the repetition if "like so many others" to show that there was a huge number of people and horses that were lucky enough to return from the war and find their own form of safety.

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'In the cargo hold, the lights had blown out and it was pitch-dark. Quinlivan could hear the bone-chilling sounds of stallions screaming, hooves clanging against metal and boards, and mares whinnying. Each time the ship rolled, the horses flung back and forth against the wooden planks that separated them” (254).

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'In the cargo hold, the lights had blown out and it was pitch-dark. Quinlivan could hear the bone-chilling sounds of stallions screaming, hooves clanging against metal and boards, and mares whinnying. Each time the ship rolled, the horses flung back and forth against the wooden planks that separated them” (254).

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For someone who does not have much experience with horses, the quote may not seem to be all too significant - although, without a doubt Letts' does a great job of setting this scary scene as the boat carrying the horses back to the United States experienced a great storm on their travel. As someone who as spend most of my life so far around horses, I can imagine the sounds she is talking about. As I read this quote I could hear the screams of the stallions and whinnying of the mares so vividly that it was almost as if I was there on the boat with them.

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“Podhajsky soon joined them, eager to keep watch over the horses. During the next few hours, a maelstrom swirled outside”(209).

In this case, maelstrom means a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil. Outside of closed stable doors, Americans rounded up Germans in uniform.

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"The war had destroyed many things, but one of the worst casualties  was the loss of hope for a peaceful world... That day, Hank Reed knew that for all the sadness and loss and pain he had seen, he would accomplish at least one positive thing: Lovely and unbloodied, these horses were going to gallop safely into the postwar world"(204).

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"The war had destroyed many things, but one of the worst casualties  was the loss of hope for a peaceful world... That day, Hank Reed knew that for all the sadness and loss and pain he had seen, he would accomplish at least one positive thing: Lovely and unbloodied, these horses were going to gallop safely into the postwar world"(204).

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In his paragraph the author contrasts the harsh effects of the way and all the negativity that it brings with Reed's feelings of success and happiness after he rescued the horses. Being a soldier, Reed has seen a lot of bad things going on all around him. But his passion for the horses led to a great success and added some light to the dark world he had been living in during times of war.

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"A ribbon of moonlight snaking through the trees helped illuminate their path, but the way was still shadowy and rife with potential traps"(178).

Rife means (especially of something undesirable or harmful) of common occurrence; widespread. So, in this case the author is showing how these men were surrounded by danger. One wrong step could lead them straight into trouble.

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"Reed considered his options. Could he risk lives and manpower to save a group of horses? Putting men at risk was never an easy decision. But abandoning the horses just didn't feel right to him. He could not easy forget the cavalry lesson instilled into him for over twenty years: Horses should always be treated well"(171). 

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"Reed considered his options. Could he risk lives and manpower to save a group of horses? Putting men at risk was never an easy decision. But abandoning the horses just didn't feel right to him. He could not easy forget the cavalry lesson instilled into him for over twenty years: Horses should always be treated well"(171). 

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By using the rhetorical question in this quote, the author is able to get the reader to consider the question at hand. The reader is able to mentally answer that question however they may choose. Letts' shows us Reed's thinking process as he tried to figure out for himself what he should do next. The first few sentences of this quote are shorter and to the point. I feel although the writer is trying to build the intensity and grab the readers attention

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"Two hundred and ninety-five days. That was how many times the sun had risen and set since the day Reed and his men first set foot in France. The impression of each day was etched across Reed's windburned face, written in his hooded gaze and somber expression"(154).

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"Two hundred and ninety-five days. That was how many times the sun had risen and set since the day Reed and his men first set foot in France. The impression of each day was etched across Reed's windburned face, written in his hooded gaze and somber expression"(154).

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All the author is really trying to say is that these men have been fighting and away from home for a very long time. However, Letts' is able to craft her words into a beautiful description of what is really going on. Through her choice of diction the reader is able to visualize what Reed may look like, a young man - physically and mentally strained from the harsh affects of war. Choosing to word the description of Reed like this: "... written in his hooded gaze and somber expression"(154), does so much more than just telling the reader that Reed is being affected by his time at war, it allows you to feel the emotions the author is trying to portray - that things were incredibly hard for these men.

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January 5, 2018

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"'You are not going to die,' Patton exhorted the men. 'Only two percent of you here, in a major battle, would die. Death must not be feared. Every man is frightened at first in battle. If he say he isn't, he's a goddamn liar'"(129).

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"'You are not going to die,' Patton exhorted the men. 'Only two percent of you here, in a major battle, would die. Death must not be feared. Every man is frightened at first in battle. If he say he isn't, he's a goddamn liar'"(129).

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I enjoyed this section as I have entered Part Two of the book which holds a lot more action. Here, Patton is trying to comfort his men, none of which have ever fought in a battle before. In fact, Patton himself hadn't even fought in a battle before. Therefore, he himself is just as scared as the rest of them. The next page goes on to describe more of the speech that Patton delivered to his cavalry men before they rode into battle. His use of profanity and vulgar language stirred up laughing apprehensively, but the deeper and darker message always remained apparent.

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"Just one year after the glorious seventy-fifth-anniversary celebration, the 10th Cavalry was disbanded and most of the soldiers were moved to service roles"(115).

Disband means (of an organized group) beak up or cause to break up and stop functioning.  Unfortunately for Major General John K. Herr, his position of chief of cavalry and the 2nd Cavalry Division were eliminated.

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"The remaining eighteen, who were frightened and balked, were shot on the spot. Their carcasses were butchered and fed to the Red Army's hungry soldiers"(82).

Balked is the past tense of the verb balk meaning to hesitate or be unwilling to accept and idea or overtaking. Again, Letts use of imagery and diction really pull the reader in and allows them to paint a mental picture of the scene.

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By the summer of 1944, the white stallions had learned to recognize the air raid signal. One by one, the horses would poke their heads over their half-doors, ready to do their part to speed the evacuation... At the first sound of the air raid signal, Podhajsky would rush to the stables to supervise the transfer of the horses to the Winter Riding School, where the men and animals would wait out the bombing" (77-78).

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By the summer of 1944, the white stallions had learned to recognize the air raid signal. One by one, the horses would poke their heads over their half-doors, ready to do their part to speed the evacuation... At the first sound of the air raid signal, Podhajsky would rush to the stables to supervise the transfer of the horses to the Winter Riding School, where the men and animals would wait out the bombing" (77-78).

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One thing that I really loved about this quote - and many others in the text -is the vivid imagery that Letts' uses to describe the setting. When reading this paragraph, I would really visualize the horses poking their heads over the door, eager to get to safety as much as the people wanted to. Also, when thinking of the bombings and warfare during WWII, many do not think about how this effected those other than the men in the armies. Ordinary people - and their animals - would have to fear for their lives all too frequently.

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"As he explained in his two hugely influential treatises on horsemanship, only through a partnership of mutual respect could a man fully rely on a horse in battle"(47).

A treatise is a written work dealing formally and systematically with a subject. Xenophon's - a greek military and equestrian expert - ancient philosophy was still being used by Podhajsky many years later. Xenophon's written work allowed Podhajasky to learn his ways

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By Elizabeth Letts

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"But the truth was still unpleasant and bleak. Lessing realized that Rau was not encouraging Polish horse breeding for the benefit of the Polish nation but only for the glorification of the Third Reich. While human beings were being transported in cattle cars, horses moved about in plush padded trains, specially equipped for their protection, always accompanied by grooms who cared for their every need"(42).

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"But the truth was still unpleasant and bleak. Lessing realized that Rau was not encouraging Polish horse breeding for the benefit of the Polish nation but only for the glorification of the Third Reich. While human beings were being transported in cattle cars, horses moved about in plush padded trains, specially equipped for their protection, always accompanied by grooms who cared for their every need"(42).

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This comparison that Letts makes at the end of chapter 4 is truly hard to think about. Many people were suffering in concentration camps during these times, while Gustav Rau was pampering his breeding horses not far from the barbed wire of the camps. On page 37 Letts describes how close they really are: "The sleek, well-tended horses and the manicured grounds of these stud farms existed, in a through-the-looking-glass juxtaposition, not far from the barbed wire of concentration and death camps that latticed occupied Poland in 1939"(37).

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December 21, 2017

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PAGES:
Week #1: 1-30
Week #2: 31-133
Week #3: 134-311

DUE DATES:
Week #1: 12/15
Week #2: 12/21
Week #3: 1/5

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December 15, 2017

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"A photograph of the event shows the small man wearing a white suit, his bald head shining in the spring sunshine, his right arm raised in the Hitler salute, the führer's telegram clutched in his other hand" (14).

The führer's telegram was Hitler's acceptance speech when the winning German rider gifted Hitler his champion stallion, Wotan the "wonder horse". Gustav Rau read this acceptance on May 24, 1933 in Berlin.

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"For centuries, men had measured their military might by the worth of their horses. In 1936 Berlin, the equestrian competitions were psychological war games; a dress rehearsal for the much larger cataclysm that lay just over the horizon" (8).

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"For centuries, men had measured their military might by the worth of their horses. In 1936 Berlin, the equestrian competitions were psychological war games; a dress rehearsal for the much larger cataclysm that lay just over the horizon" (8).

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Just eight pages into the story, Letts foreshadows to the tension between the powerful countries in Europe. It is particularly interesting to think of how the olympic games at this time and the world politics interacted. Nowadays, people do not think of horses as something particularly important. However, this quote reminds the reader that horses were once used to determine the power of a country's army. Thus, playing a much more important role in our world's history than many may think of at first. Letts also uses a metaphor when comparing the olympic games to a dress rehearsals for what is to come.

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For my outside reading book I chose to read The Perfect Horse by Elizabeth Letts. I was excited to dive into this book as soon as I read a short summary of it. Not only do I get to read about my favorite thing in the world - horses -but it also has to do with genetics which is something I have always been interested in. Also, my lack of knowledge in topics of history has always bothered me; so I'm hoping that reading this novel will make me more knowledgeable on the history of WWII.