Parsons Mounted Cavalry

The Association of Former Students, through the generous support of former students and friends of Texas A&M, is able to fund former student programs and services, student activities, scholarships and financial aid, faculty enrichment programs and many other critical projects for Texas A&M.

One such student activity that The Association helps fund is the Parsons Mounted Cavalry.

Below is an article Texas Aggie published in 2009 about Bob Byrns ’74, PMC’s site manager.

When you give to The Association, you are combining your gift with the power of tens of thousands of donors worldwide. The Aggie Network comes together each year, contributing millions of dollars to the Annual Fund. Those funds ensure that the Aggie Spirit will be nurtured through programs like Aggie Ring Day and New Student Orientation; preserved through traditions such as Aggie Muster; and shared by Aggies everywhere through about 250 A&M Clubs in every corner of the world. Indeed, the Aggie Network has a positive influence on every student who walks the Texas A&M campus.

Bob Byrns ’74 is a founding member of Texas A&M’s Parsons Mounted Cavalry. He’s a saddle-maker by trade, a teacher by profession and a horseman by heritage. Seven years ago, while in town for a reunion, Byrns’ past became his credentials for sustaining a Texas A&M tradition.

The Parsons Mounted Cavalry—or the Cav, or PMC, as most Ags call it—is the mounted military organization within the Corps of Cadets. They are the men and women on horseback and the chosen crew to fire the cannon after each Aggie score at Kyle Field. The mounted outfit represents tradition, heritage and hard work.

But seven years ago, PMC was bogged down.

Byrns was just visiting that day. It had been 25 years since his last call to Fiddler’s Green, the 27-acre plot that houses the Cav and its horses, but he could see where the unit was lacking. “They needed someone with horse knowledge and leatherworking skills,” Byrns said.

The future seemed to peer out of the wooden barn, with its stalls full of horses and college students in need of guidance. “I have a very vested interest in seeing this unit continue,” Byrns said. So he started volunteering—quietly at first. He’d take the Cav’s leatherwork and harnesses back to his saddle shop in Tomball. “I had expertise,” he said. “I’m good at it, and I like it.”

But most important, Byrns said, he didn’t want to see it die. The Cav is an important part of Texas A&M, he said, and Texas A&M is an important part of him.

Byrns was a junior physical education major when three cadets proposed the cavalry be revived. Combat horsemanship had been part of military instruction at Texas A&M from 1876 until the early 1900s, and A&M had a cavalry until 1945.

Cadets like Byrns wanted the cavalry tradition back at Texas A&M. They spent hours at the library researching A&M’s first mounted unit.

“It was a student organization, and it was treated as such. Students led,” he said.

And, it was a success. Cadets named the unit after the Corps of Cadets commandant at the time, Thomas R. Parsons ’49.

PMC is unique in that it has both cavalry and artillery in the same division. “No one has all the pieces together like we do here,” he said.

At Texas A&M, both sides of the cavalry are celebrated. The horses get stares and admiration, and the cannon gets the echo of its celebratory boom.

More properly called a 1902 field artillery gun than a cannon, The Spirit of ’02 is a prized possession in Aggieland. Byrns was there when it was unearthed.

“It was found at the (Bonfire) cutting site near Easterwood Airport in 1975. There were actually two of them found,” Byrns said. A big rain had just swept through the area and eroded some of the soil, he said. Both guns were dug out and combined to make one working artillery gun, he said. It took eight years to find someone with the mechanical know-how. The Association of Former Students helped finance the purchase of a limber—the wagon that carries the cannon— and in September 1982, the artillery gun was fired for the first time on the Corps of Cadets Quadrangle. The Spirit of ’02 became tradition on Kyle Field in 1984.

The Parson’s Mounted Cavalry remains a tradition. And though Byrns said not much pomp was given to the idea back in the Cav’s early years, the unit is one of the most recognizable today.

“My favorite part of a football game is when they ride the horses around the field,” Byrns said.

Most likely, he’s not alone.