Army's 'Old Guard' blacksmith forges 3 decades of service

ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) -- Monday is Pete Cote's final Memorial Day as the chief civilian blacksmith for Army horses used at Arlington National Cemetery.Cote is retiring after more than three decades of preparing horses for cemetery caissons -- from the Vietnam War to the Persian Gulf War through the war in Iraq.At Fort Myer, Virginia, home of the Army's so-called "Old Guard" unit -- the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment -- Cote's farrier shop greets visitors with the smell of burning coal and the sound of hammer on steel."Everybody wants a job that they enjoy," Cote says. "And about 90 percent of the people do not have that type of job I've got -- a job that I absolutely love."