Paddock, 5th Regiment U.S. Cavalry, was severely wounded by Utes at the Battle of Milk Creek in Colorado during the White River War.

Undeterred, Paddock was accompanied by Senator John A. Logan in a visit to Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln to discuss his wishes to serve as an officer.

Gen. Thomas J. Henderson, Paddock's congressman from Illinois, he was finally offered the opportunity to sit for examination for a commission in the Army.

During this time, Paddock served on Courts Martial and also escorted two squads of Mescalero Apache U.S. Scouts from near Fort Stanton through the San Andreas Mountains to an 8th Cavalry camp near Grafton, New Mexico, traversing the desolate area now home to the White Sands Missile Range.

[3] In September 1885, Lt. Paddock earned a spot at the prestigious Cavalry and Infantry School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, later renamed the Army Command and General Staff College.

Paddock, Pershing, and another young lieutenant, Julius Penn, became close friends and lived an idyllic frontier lifestyle of hunting, carousing and visits to Mexican dances, earning the trio the nickname "The Three Green P's.

On December 29, 1890, a confrontation between these groups and the force posted at Pine Ridge, the 7th Cavalry, resulted in the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Along the north bank of the White River, near the mouth of Little Grass Creek, the 6th engaged Brulé Sioux attempting to flee to the Badlands on January 1, 1891.

Thirty-two Boxers were killed with no American casualties, resulting in high praise for Paddock from 6th Cavalry commander Capt.

[13] Still not fully recovered from attacks of malaria contracted in Cuba, Paddock developed severe pneumonia during strenuous march from Peking to Tientsin.

From Manila, John Pershing wrote to Paddock's hometown newspaper, "Dick died the soldier that he lived, so brave, so honorable.

Gallant to the point of recklessness, he escaped bullets to fall a victim to the rigors of campaigning in the dead of winter in the frozen north.