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New US Defense Secretary Receives Unique Gift in Mongolia

Carla Babb

   ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA - U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper faced a
   difficult decision during his stop in Mongolia Thursday -- what name to
   give a horse that he was gifted by Mongolian leaders.

   He landed on a name easily recognizable to Americans, with a unique tie
   to Mongolian equestrian history. A name associated with war and peace
   -- the name of a famous U.S. Army general in the 1940s, who went on to
   become a secretary of defense and secretary of state. And a man who, in
   the 1920s as a young military officer, traveled to Mongolia to procure
   the finest horses for his infantry regent while they were based in
   China.

   Esper named his chestnut steed -- a traditional gift of Mongolians to
   visiting dignitaries-- Marshall, after General George Marshall-- a man
   lauded as an "organizer of victory" in World War II and such an
   advocate for post-war European recovery that the U.S. plan dedicated to
   it bore his name.

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