Boots and Saddles A Call to Glory

Boots and Saddles: A Call to Glory is the turning point that saved George Patton's military career. At thirty-two, Patton is a West Point graduate, Second Lieutenant mired in a dead-end career. He is a cavalry officer and Saber Master, a nineteenth-century warrior facing the reality of a twentieth-century military that seemingly has no place for him. Prospects for the glorious career he desires seem lost, until the United States Cavalry is called to one last fight. In the spring of 1916 political instability in Mexico spills across the U.S. border. The revolutionary bandit Pancho Villa raids Columbus, New Mexico. President Woodrow Wilson's neutrality policy toward the war in Europe is challenged on the nation's southern border by the presence of German agents operating in Mexico. Wilson orders a Punitive Expedition to bring the outlaw revolutionary to justice. Patton rides into Mexico as a staff officer to General John J. Pershing. Pershing mounts an aggressive campaign to apprehend Villa under difficult mountainous conditions. Patton confronts the reality of twentieth-century warfare. Reconnaissance and communications, traditional cavalry missions, are usurped by the Army's fledgling air service and the promise of wireless communications. Modern ballistics render the cavalry obsolete as a fighting force.