Global Animal Memorial

A long-term public-interest archive preserving animal stories, memorial records, source-based case files, and human-animal coexistence memories.

Animal Stories

Black Jack: the riderless horse of U.S. military funerals

1976-02-06 Fort Myer, Virginia / Arlington National Cemetery and ceremonial sites
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Black Jack served as the riderless horse of the U.S. Army’s Caisson Platoon and appeared in more than a thousand full-honors military funerals.

Fort Myer, Virginia / Arlington National Cemetery and ceremonial sites

Public-source image of Black Jack as a riderless horse, Wikimedia Commons image saved locally.
Public-source image of Black Jack as a riderless horse, Wikimedia Commons image saved locally.

Story

Black Jack served as a riderless horse in U.S. full-honors military funerals, symbolising the absent rider.

The archive records both the ceremonial meaning and the animal’s own life of training, labour, retirement and death.

Black Jack is archived because animals can become central carriers of public mourning and ritual memory.

Sources

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