Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] 'Tis the season...

msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Mounted search and rescue

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Lois Guyon <laguyon2@yahoo.com>
  • To: Mounted search and rescue <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] 'Tis the season...
  • Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 18:38:31 -0700 (PDT)

On the annual "to do" list of the LaSalle County (IL) Sheriff's MSAR Posse,
is the Freedom Run. This event brings between 30 and 60 thousand motorcycle
riders to a town of about 4,000 people. The purpose of the event is to honor
Middle East war dead at a beautiful memorial site on the Illinois River.
Local law enforcement is beyond what it can handle. Therefore the State
Police and neighboring agencies respond. To give the impression of police
presence, the posse is a useful(taller than a cycle) way to keep an eye on
the crowds. One year the streets became clogged with cycles blocking
emergency vehicles. The posse formed a "V" and moved through the street
opening the way for emergency vehicles.

This event is usually held in very hot and humid weather. The horses work on
concrete streets. The ceremony includes a 21 gun salute (horses deal well
with this) and the really bad one---fireworks that reverberate between
buildings and last way too long in the view of the horses. To work this
event the horses have to deal with the cycles, the fireworks, the guns,
emergency vehicles, people on foot who want to pet them, and about 6 hours in
the sun. My horse as been great with all of this and I was certain she could
deal with anything. However, this year she saw a new and threatening thing
---the portable toilet. Just as I was riding along a row of these portable
toilets a person came out and slammed the door. Now who would think to train
for porta-pottys???

The end of the potty story is that about three weeks after the crowd control
event with the toilets, I was assigned a campgound to search when looking for
a missing man. The place was full of toilets. My horse seemed not to notice.

We all dislike working the Freedom Run, but the Sheriff is grateful and
personally comes out to thank each of us individually. The real pay off is
when the families of the military people being memorialized come up and thank
us for helping with the event. They seem to know we are volunteers. Yes, we
are an MSAR group, but I think we benifit by some of these other activities.
Therefore our community benifits.

Lois







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page