A stronger blast, a little less luck, and the horse that Marine Sgt. Michael Blair is riding down an Arlington County trail could easily be pulling his coffin.
"It's an honor riding these horses, knowing what they do," he said.
The horses that Blair rides in a rehabilitation program for wounded service members also pull the caissons that carry fallen troops for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. At times, Blair rides them along the same road, turning and heading back to the barn before reaching the cemetery.
Blair, 34, was on a security mission in Iraq when the Humvee he was driving rolled over a pressure-plate mine packed with explosives. When he regained consciousness, he saw two singed holes in his camouflage pants where his knees should have been.
After 60 surgeries, including the fusion of cadaver bone to his right knee, Blair still walks on his own two legs, his recovery aided in large part by the civilian therapeutic riding program he entered in 2006.
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Today, the Caisson Platoon Equine-Assisted Riding Program, headed by military veterans Mary Jo Beckman and Larry Pence and supported by the Veterans Administration, counts hundreds of service members as testament to the success of matching wounded warriors with horses. The program, based at Fort Myer, accepts any service member, wounded physically or psychologically, certain that it has benefits for all participants.
The connection that the caisson horses have with the military community helps the wounded troops in ways other forms of traditional rehabilitation can't, Beckman and Pence said. It allows troops to bond with the horses they ride, which, Pence said, has been shown to help improve the riders' moods.
Unlike in some other rehabilitation programs, riders work their muscles naturally, said Pence, 63, a retired Army command sergeant major from Fredericksburg. Studies have shown that a horse's gait closely mimics the human stride, he said. As the service members ride, they exercise the same muscle groups they would if they were walking and simultaneously train core muscles to help improve balance and stability.
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The riding program takes wounded troops outside, far beyond the walls of the clinical setting of a hospital. It is the only therapeutic riding program at a military base on the East Coast. Instead of nurses, it uses combat soldiers assigned to the Old Guard, the Army's 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment.
Beckman, 58, a retired Navy commander from Falls Church, is a certified therapeutic riding instructor for the physically disabled. She designed the program to help service members who suffer from a variety of impairments, including amputations and traumatic brain injuries. For many participants, it is their first time on a horse.
"Squeeze the horse like it's a tube of toothpaste," Beckman tells her more timid participants, as their mounts clip-clop along.
During a session, riders guide their horses through a series of cones while performing movements meant to expand their mobility and coordination. They stretch their arms out and twist to touch the horse's tail, then their toes, then the horse's ears.
Beckman incorporates trivia and memorization, quizzing riders about parts of the horse -- Where are the fetlocks? (ankles) Where are the hocks? (hind knees) -- and engages them in conversation to give them a physical and mental workout at the same time.
Blair said the riding program has helped strengthen his legs and back. In the fall, he completed the Marine Corps Marathon on a hand-crank bicycle, finishing in 2 hours and 10 minutes. But his road to recovery will take longer. Before he was hurt, he could run three miles in 18 minutes. Now he struggles to walk one in an hour.
Two other members of the program are Army Capt. Mariah Kochavi, 29, a veterinarian who treats bomb-sniffing dogs, and Sgt. Seyward McKinney, 25, who while in Iraq as an operating room technician twice assisted in surgery on Saddam Hussein while he was in U.S. custody.
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Both have had strokes and say that the riding program is helping them to regain balance and coordination. It improves their mood, too.
"I really look forward to it," Kochavi said. "I feel happier afterwards."
Army Sgt. Natasha McKinnon, who lost part of her left leg in a bomb blast in Iraq, said the struggle she faced during her transition from able-bodied soldier to dependent amputee civilian left her depressed and unmotivated.
"I was psychologically drained. I was on depression meds," she said. "But after riding, I felt my mood improved. Mentally and emotionally, I just got gradually better and better."
She said the riding also helped retrain muscles that had atrophied after months of hobbling around Walter Reed Army Medical Center on crutches. McKinnon, 27, a sophom*ore at North Carolina State University who is studying to become a veterinary surgeon, said that riding with her prosthesis helped her accept it.
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"My recovery would have taken longer without the riding program," she said.
The tall, bulky caisson horses are donated by farms across the country, said Capt. William Canda, commander of the U.S. Army Caisson Platoon. Two white horses, brother and sister Mickey and Minnie, are used for the therapeutic riding program because they are especially docile and easy to ride.
The VA provides some funding to privately run therapeutic riding programs across the country, but Pence and Beckman do the work at no charge. The bulk of their budget comes from private donations through Operation Silver Spurs, a nonprofit organization.
They said that since their program began more than three years ago, they have consulted with the more than 50 therapeutic riding centers that have opened across the country.
"We arrange this program for the vets, but it's an honor to make it happen," Beckman said.
