Images of Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument – Southern Montana, taken in June 2018.

On June 25, 1876 the US 7th Cavalry, led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, clashed with the overpowering forces of the Lakota (led by Lakota Medicine Man Sitting Bull) and Cheyenne (led by Cheyenne Chief Two Moons) Indian tribes in one of most memorialized Indian battles in US history. The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument honors the fallen US soldiers and their Indian Nation counterparts.

Everyone studies this battle in school somewhere along the line but there were several interesting things I didn’t know…or just didn’t learn… First, Custer lost two of his brothers, Tom and Boston, in the battle; and the under siege US troops shot their horses and used them as breastplates as a last ditch effort to stay alive in the face of the crushing attack.

For me there were two reasons this place has special meaning. First, it was a highly anticipated stop on last year’s travel itinerary, one that never happened because of my devastating RV fire. Finally making it here, and to the other parks I missed in the month after the fire, helped close the loop on that entire episode. But most significantly, and the reason it was important to come here in the first place, was my distant tie to what went on here and my connection to the command of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. You see, in 1978 and 79 while serving in the US Army and stationed in the Second Infantry Division near the 38th Parallel in South Korea I too was a member of the 7th Cavalry; the 4th Squadron 7th Army Air Cavalry to be exact. No horses, just tanks, Huey helicopters and Cobra gunships. When I first arrived in theater I was stationed at Camp Garryowen named after the Montana town closest to the battle at the Little Bighorn. Later I would be moved to Camp Stanton Army Airfield where I would maintain communication and navigation systems in the unit’s helicopters but it was the Post Office at Camp Garryowen that would always make me laugh as it was emblazoned with a sign above the door which read “Custer’s Last Stamp Stand”. This of course referred to the fact that our camp was one of the few before entering the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea and therefore the last place to send a letter through the US Mail. So, Specialist 5 (technical rank equivalent to Sargent) Pillarelli and Lt. Col. Custer share a military 7th Cavalry lineage, lucky for me we served 102 years apart…